


Apocalypse

by proch



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Blood and Violence, Earth, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Injured Lance (Voltron), Injury, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Langst, M/M, Nightmares, Occasional but inconsequential OCs, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 05, Self-Sacrifice, War, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-05 06:15:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14037969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proch/pseuds/proch
Summary: "We’re outmatched in every possible way… Voltron is the only way we can win this”*A take on a Galra invasion of Earth, from just after season 5 came out*The paladins of Voltron thought they caught a break when the Galra Empire dissolved into civil unrest after the Kral Zera. They couldn't have been more wrong as now the multi faction civil war has found itself on Earth's doorstep. Together, they struggle with the shocking truth about just who "Shiro" is, and Lance finds himself in a position he never thought he'd be in as he learns just how brutal the Galra war machine can be. Outmanned, outgunned, and outmatched, can humanity and the paladins hold the line? Or will Earth and her people just be another list of victims in an ever chaotic universe?Post season 8 edit: Wow I missed the mark big time. If there's any interest in me making a retconned version, lemme know





	1. Prologue: Prelude to War

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly my main inspiration in writing this was Battlestar Galactica (the reboot)  
> Please leave comments! Let me know how I can make it better, and if you liked it, share it!  
> Please feel free to draw art for this because that would be really cool.  
> Feel free to contact me at my tumblr to make suggestions, make critiques, or make fun of me: https://gayvoltronnerd2.tumblr.com/
> 
> Occasionally I return to this and add minor details to it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Pidge make a discovery that changes everything.

_Honestly, screw intel missions,_ Lance thought to himself as he stood watch. He could see absolutely nothing, or at least, nothing of interest. They had been here for hours, sitting, as Pidge downloaded whatever files she could; ever engrossed in her work.

Since the Galra Empire split, much of their work had been like this; as Allura and Shiro were content to allow the Galra to trade blows and weaken each other. The strategy was working too, as since the split, attacks on outlying worlds had dropped significantly.

“The less fighting we are required to do, the less resources we have to commit, the stronger the coalition will be in the long run!” Allura said, in her most commanding voice. Sure, she was right, but man she neglected to mention just how boring it all was.

“Intel this, diplomacy that!” Lance mocked. “Don’t you think we could be doing so much more on the front lines?” he asked, earning a frustrated shush from Pidge. Lance slumped back against the wall. Surely the information here wouldn't effect him much anyways. Whatever they found was usually passed to Lotor's government, who in turn dealt with it using their resources. 

Watching the unchanging entrance to the broom closet sized room they were hiding in, he began to get bored, and then tired. He must have zoned out for a while, because he was brought back to reality with a light tap to the shoulder.

“Come on, we just have to hit one more terminal and then we can make our way back to Green” She explained in a low whisper.

\-----------------------------------------

The halls of this Galra base looked like any other, purple walls, purple lights, purple… well… everything really. When Lance read (skimmed) the briefing from a week ago (courtesy of the Blade of Mamora) it had stated that this installation, as well as the planet it resided on were territory of Haggar’s faction. With the civil war as violent as it is, Lance couldn't help but wonder if it had changed hands since then, as the occasional scorch mark indicated there had been a battle here within the last month or so.

The last terminal was under flesh and blood guard, likely due to the destruction of the empire's main sentry production plant just prior to the Kral Zera, which had left the Galra short on drones. The two paladins made brief eye contact with each other before picking their targets and subduing them, making minimal noise in the process. The unconscious soldiers were then bound at the wrists and forced against a wall in the back of the room.

Just like last time, and the time before that, and the hundreds of times before that, Lance took up his position, bayard pointed at the door. _Jeez I wish something would change, I can’t do this anymore,_ he thought to himself. _Just let a sentry walk through that door, give me SOMETHING._

A familiar voice dragged him out of his own head.

“Pidge, Lance, the data you’re getting is coming through clean, the blade is going to need this” Keith informed them from the Castle.

Keith had been sent to the Castle by the Blade in order to act a liason: passing information, and receiving it in turn. Lance would never, ever admit it, but he loved having keith back. In other words: he missed that stupid mullet.

“Of course it’s coming through clean Keith” Lance boasted “You’ve got the universe’s best hacker and the most talented sharpshooter of all time on the mission!”

“Really? I didn’t know pidge’s bayard could form a gun now” Keith jested back

“Low blow samurai, just because you-” Suddenly he was cut of by the shrill voice of an extremely annoyed Green Paladin:

“Lance stop hitting on Keith and get over here I need your help” She scolded.

Blushing and wholly embarrassed Lance made his way over to the console, hoping his visor made his now rosy pink cheeks invisible to Pidge’s eyes. The last thing she needed was more blackmail material.

“ Lance I know you’ve been learning Galran language from Allura lately and I need your help I keep seeing this repeating pattern” She asked, voice hoarse.

Lance stared at the screen, Galran letters and Numerals whizzing by. Slowly the metaphorical gears in his head turned, and he began to piece it together.

“X” he whispered to himself… “Nine”... “aaaand Y”

This time Hunk spoke over the communications line: “X-9-Y… w-what is that some sort of code?”

“No thats… thats the Galran designation for Earth’s solar system” Pidge replied, with a hint of concern. “Lance, keep going”

Lance kept at it trying to piece together what little he could

“X-9-ZA… Staging base... no... staging area?” His eyes darted to Pidge hoping for an answer.

“X-9-ZA” thats the Alpha Centauri system it’s only four something light years from the Sol System… from Earth” She explained, one eyebrow raised.

Then he saw it: one word, over and over again. This word, that was about to change their lives forever:

 

_INVASION_

 

“Oh FUCK” Pidge shot up from her spot on the floor, nearly falling over.

“Language Pidge!” Shiro shot back over comms, unaware of what was coming next.

“SHIRO NOT NOW” Pidge shouted, sweating “ITS EARTH, HAGGAR IS GOING TO INVADE THE SOL SYSTEM”

Lance stood there silently. He was in shock. He heard something about getting out of there, about contacting Commander Holt, about warning The Garrison, but he couldn't react. Even as Pidge grabbed him by the arm and ran, pulling him down the hallway back towards the green lion; he couldn’t focus on what was happening around him.

 _Dios_ he thought _I asked for action… and the universe… it answered_


	2. A Planet Worth Fighting For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Garrison and the Coalition prepare to mount a defense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote a second chapter! Let me know what you think!

The call with Earth was not a pleasant one. The Holo-screen in the Castle’s bridge was divided into five individual panels, one for each member of the defense committee, one for Commander Sam Holt, and one for the one eyed menace himself, Commander Iverson. All five wore expressions so grim you’d think the battle was already over.

All five were dressed in their grey Garrison officer’s uniforms. Various awards and medals decorated their chests, indicating their authority was well founded. Even Iverson looked like he had earned a medal or two since the Paladins had left Earth.

Lance found it hard to focus. Everyone around him threw ideas to the table left and right, but he couldn't bring himself to listen. He hoped nobody would notice his indifference; _after all,_ he thought, _they know this is almost hopeless right?_ The Garrison had been founded to be ready for such a thing (under the guise of peaceful exploration), but the Galra far surpassed Earth in every way. At the simplest of math, it was the resources of thousands if not tens of thousands of galaxies, against the pitiful defense of a single planet.

From the other side of the room Keith could in fact see that something was off with Lance. There was Lance, normally so loud, obnoxious even yet, tactical and focused on a goal when it came down to it; but now silent stone cold. Keith couldn’t put his finger on it… _is the news about Earth hitting him this hard? He knows we can win right? We have Voltron so we can do it… right?_ Keith was dragged out of his thoughts by Commander Holt

“I’m moving the fleet to Jupiter, the hope is that we can intercept the Galra fleet before they make it to Earth”

The chief of the committee spoke next, “A lot is riding on you Commander Holt. Nevertheless, we will begin making preparations here. Good luck”

One by one, the committee members left the video call, until Iverson and Holt were the only two left on screen.

“We know what's coming next” Iverson began, in a somber tone. “I’m with the 15th Garrison Marine Division in Boston, we’ll do our best to hold the line but… good luck Sam”. With that, Iverson left the call.

Shiro spoke next: “Sam what did he mean by that?”

“I…” he sighed “I have 120 ships with me, but we don’t even compare to any Galra force. We have ship to ship artillery shells, and they’re packing Ion Cannons and particle barriers. Not to mention that were outnumbered 50 to 1. We’re outmatched in every possible way… Voltron is the only way we can win this”

“Dad it's okay, we’ve been in tough battles before I’m sure we can…”

Pidge was cut off by a frustrated growl from Lance, before she could even ask him what was wrong he shouted “Pidge our families haven’t been at stake until now! If we fail… we lose everything worth fighting for…” as Lance trailed off, the room fell deathly silent.

It was Allura who broke the ice: “Coran and I need to start making preparations for the jump to… what was it you called this planet? Jupiter?”

“I’ll come too” Shiro blurted out, before following the two Alteans out the door.

“Matt is down in Green’s hangar working on fine tuning your cloaking device if you want to join me Pidge” Started Hunk, shooting a worried glare at Lance before he exited the room. Pidge, on the other hand, simply walked out without even looking up.

With that, the only ones left were Lance, Keith, and Commander Holt, who still had yet to end the call. Lance continued to stare at the floor, as if it had some answer for his concerns.

“You know Lance” Holt paused as Lance looked back to the screen “ If there's any way you can help, I’ll give you a call”

“I… uh… thank you, sir”

Commander Holt shared a half smile with the boy as he terminated the call. With nothing left to do but wait, Lance turned to leave the room, but not before Keith forcefully grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Lance… what was that back there, are you okay?” He asked

Lance wanted to jest, or make some kind of pun. He wanted to tell Keith that he was stupid for even thinking something could be wrong with the great Lancey-Lance, but when he turned around and saw the deep worried look in those deep amethyst eyes, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

“My family is there Keith!” A single tear rolling down his left cheek, he continued: “ w-what if we... I don’t know if we can… what if we fail?”

Keith never knew why he dragged Lance into a hug, it just felt right. As the Red Paladin began to sob, Keith did what he could to calm him down.

“Hey, it's going to be okay I promise, we’ll figure it out”

Lance felt the warmth of Keith's skin against his own. _Wow he's really warm is this normal?_ He looked up to see Keith’s face was now a bright pink.

“Oh my god Keith I know you don't do emotions well but are you blushing?” He struggled to say between giggles

Keith shot back out of the hug, embarrassed stammering to find his words “I-I-oh I uh look, I thought... well you see…”

“Keith” lance interrupted, a grin forming across his face “thank you”

Keith watched Lance turn and leave as the warmth in his face grew stronger. Bringing his hand up to his cheek, he scoffed… _What the hell is this boy doing to me?_


	3. Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle for Sol begins, but what nefarious plan does Haggar have up her sleeve?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter I'm gonna put out this week. This little forray of mine into writing has been very fun, and I hope you'll stick around and help me continue it!

Five hooded figures walked into the great empty transparent room, lit only by the red light from Pluto below, reflected from the sun so very far away. They observed quietly as the fleet warped in around them, growing exponentially with time.

“This dwarf planet will act as a supply and administrative base for our operation” The first druid spoke, her voice permeating the still air with a callous shrill.

“And the Altean ship?” spoke the lead figure, opening a window through space before her.

“It’s here in this system, our scouts report it with the Human fleet at the fifth planet from star X-9-Y” a second druid reported, her voice far deeper than the last.

The window now revealed an image, the command room of the castle ship. The figures observed the four paladins they could see, Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green. Behind them, a great gas giant, swirls of yellows, oranges and reds, the windows full of comparatively primitive human dreadnoughts.

“So… the humans are aware of our presence?” Inquired the first druid.

“It is of no concern the Humans are not an advanced species. They stand no chance against our armada” the lead figure reprimanded.

“And Voltron?” a third druid probed.

“That is where this comes in” said the lead figure, lifting her face to reveal Altean markings, and gesturing to the window in space-time. “It is time to initiate the final stage of Operation Kuron. Make the preparations”

\-----------------------------------------

Lance studied Jupiter as it sat off to his left. Magnificent swirling clouds, warm reds, oranges and yellows; only obscured by the occasional warship in his field of vision. It looked so peaceful. It was honestly hard to believe it was actually extremely violent and dangerous place down there. Above it, the Garrison's main battle fleet had amassed, creating a field of colossal vessels, where squadrons of fighters maneuvered in between. Each one of the Human dreadnoughts was massive, at least five times larger than the Castle. Yet, as the old saying goes: size isn't everything, because the castle could probably destroy all of them in a matter of minutes.

 **_You’re worried, my paladin, I can feel it_ ** Red hummed in his mind.

“Aw what me? No of course not I…”

**_Paladin, we’re linked. You aren’t fooling me_ **

Lance let out a sigh. Red was right, he was a nervous wreck. Despite what Keith had told him, despite the fleet outside his window, he knew that if they failed, they stood to lose everything they cared about. He knew his whole team felt it, but somehow he was the only one having trouble keeping his emotions down.

 **_Whatever happens you’ll do what's right_ **. Lance could feel red purr… as much as a mechanical space cat-ship could purr. It didn’t alleviate his fears, but for the time being, he felt better.

“Listen paladins, we don’t know when the Galra fleet will be here but until then we need to hold the…” Shiro cut his sentence off with a pained grunt.

“Shiro what’s wrong?” said Hunk, a nervous and heightened pitch in his voice.

Lance immediately remembered his conversation with Shiro in the dead space surrounding the white hole at Oriande. _Not... feeling... like... myself…_ he mouthed, one word at a time. Before he could open a private channel to Shiro, Pidge piped up:

“Shiro if you go to the back of the cockpit in the box with that weird Altean symbol that kinda looks like Pi, is the medical equipment. The red tube inside is the space painkiller”

“Thanks Pidge” replied Shiro, clearly strained

Just like that idle conversation picked back up. The whole team talked, joked, laughed even as if the one thing they feared most wasn’t on their doorstep. Even Keith joined in occasionally from his now repainted Galra fighter. Lance watched as he weaved in and out of the human ships, leading a squadron of volunteers from the Blade. _Show off_ , he thought with a smile.

\-----------------------------------------

This continued for hours. Periodically, Commander Holt would enter the channel from the dreadnaught G.G.S. _Everest_ , asking for a sitrep, and then checking on Pidge. However, he would leave the channel as quickly as he came resulting in the conversation resuming as it was. Yet still Lance just listened, never talking; and nobody seemed to care (or so he thought). A red light began blinking rapidly on the center console, indicating someone opening a private channel.

“Hey Lance? It’s Keith… are you okay?” He said slowly, as if fearing the answer

“What me? Yeah I’m fine. Nothing wrong here” Lance replied, hoping Keith would buy into the blatant lie.

“Okay because Pidge has made four of five quips your way and you haven’t responded to any of them” Keith stated, clearly concerned.

That's when it happened. Every panel inside the red lion turned into an alarm. From the confused bunch of screams or “uh ohs” coming over the comms, it wasn't just him. The galra were here.

With less than a second to react, a fleet of Massive Galra capital ships dropped out of lightspeed directly on top of them, and began opening fire. Lance snapped out of his stupor when the human dreadnought closest to him exploded, sending debris across his view screen. All hell broke loose. The human fleet returned fire, heavy shells whipped across empty space at lightning pace, slamming into the Galra warships with great force. Despite this, Holt’s fleet was only making a dent.

The lions were having somewhat better luck. Blasting two fighters directly in front of him, Lance watched Hunk effectively pile drive his lion through one of the Galra cruisers blowing it in two. Pidge and her jaw blade made short work of other cruisers off to his right. Not to be outdone Lance formed his jawblade, and flew left to engage some of the cruisers giving the Human fleets a hard time. However, he couldn't save them all. Lance caught a glimpse of the G.G.S. _Jungfrau_ going up in flames. The very thought of the thousands of people onboard that just perished sent rage boiling through his bones; a rage he felt mirrored and amplified in his lion.

Still team voltron was making gains, even forcing the galra back in some places. When a galra command cruiser imploded to Lance’s right, cheers filled his comms.

“YEAH, way to go Shiro!” shouted Hunk

“We’ve got them on the run, keep the pressure up!” exclaimed Pidge.

Their celebration was remarkably short lived, as a second wave of Galra ships, bigger than the first, joined the battle.

The comms from the G.G.S. _Everest_ crackled to life:

“Shiro right now would be a fantastic time to form Voltron!” Shouted Holt.

“He's right! Everyone it's time to FORM VOL-” Shiro cut out.

A second went by, and then five, and then twenty, the black lion showed no inclination of entering formation.

“Um Paladins, something massive is entering the area” informed Coran, the stress ever present in his voice.

Lance could see it, an absolutely massive command ship, exactly like Zarkon’s, and yet slightly different. This one had red markings, and the spires reached even further downwards, connecting at the bottom.

“What the quiznack is that?” Was all Allura could mutter, stunned.

Suddenly the black lion changed course and went directly for the mysterious ship, Shiro wasn’t saying anything.

“What is he doing?!” demanded Keith.

Lance didn't answer he instead maxed red’s throttle, before making a request:

“Red, girl, I need you to force a video line open to black, and patch it through to the other lions, and the castle”

Red hummed in agreement, but Lance could feel a certain nervousness from her he had never felt before. Even she didn’t know what was going on.

When the video channel opened, the whole team gasped.

“Thats… thats not Shiro” Allura stammered, clearly alarmed.

Sure, it looked like Shiro, but his eyes, they were yellow like the Galra; and his body had a soft purple glow. The most frightening part of it all was how his head was tilted about 45 degrees to the side.

Lance couldn’t say anything, he was gaining on Black, he was getting closer… almost there… and then, gone. Black was up and inside the vessel which left as quickly as it came. Everyone sat there in stunned silence. Black was gone, whoever that was pretending to be Shiro gone with her.

It was when a laser beam from a galra cruiser ripped the G.G.S. _Ararat_ clean in half that the Paladins realized just how desperate their situation had become.


	4. The Price of Defeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The situation is rapidly deteriorating. With a missing black lion, a faltering fleet, and a desperate team... Lance has to make a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lied: I wanted to put out this one more chapter and finish the battle at Jupiter. I hope someone likes the idea I hat to name all the Garrison dreadnoughts after mountains! It came to me while I was laying in bed the other night and I was way too proud of myself for it.

“The _Monadnock_ is down with all hands! Paladins what the hell happened to Shiro!?” Holt screamed over the comms. The panic in his tone was palpable. Between trying to regain control of the collapsing human fleet, and reestablish communications with Earth, his attention was divided.

Lance couldn’t bring himself to answer Holt’s plea for an answer, as he had yet to figure out what just happened. _Those eyes… who was that?_ The black lion was now gone, with the Galra. With it, Voltron, the hope to win the fight at Jupiter, the hope to prevent anyone on Earth from getting dragged into this awful war, was gone too. The image of two dreadnoughts in the Garrison fleet colliding with each other finally put his mind on the situation at hand. _We’re losing. Hard._

“Lance the Blade volunteers are all down what do you want me to do?” Keith asked.

Before Lance could respond, Pidge joined the call: “Lance whats the plan?”

The realization quickly dawned on him, with “Shiro” gone, the right hand has to become the head. It was up to him to lead what was left.

“Coran…” he began, “what's the situation at the castle?”

There was a brief pause before an answer.

“Bad!” was the only brief response he could utter, the sound of sparks and fires coming from behind him.

With a sigh, Lance got a grip on the situation, and made a choice he knew he would regret forever:

“Keith, Allura go back and land at the Castle, Hunk go with them and lay down covering fire. Pidge, with me, we need to bolster the Garrison fleet so that we can…” He paused, the weight of the next word ever present on his tongue, “...retreat”.

His orders were greeted with quiet, defeated answers summing up to a “got it”.

“Pidge open a video channel to the _Everest_ , get your dad on the line” He said quietly

“Lance, we can’t hold the line much longer, we’re down to fifteen ships”  Holt shouted. Behind him, Lance could see two officers fighting a fire, and dragging a wounded comrade off screen.

“I know, Pid- Katie and I are coming to cover you, g-get your ships out of here, fall back to M-Mars” Lance stumbled, fumbling to find his leadership voice.

“Our ships can’t go faster than light, you’ll have to hold the line until we’re out of Jupiter’s gravitational influence”

“Okay… we’ll do our best. Allura will wormhole to meet you at Mars”

“Roger that, and Lance, Thank you” Holt cut the call.

\-----------------------------------------

Holding the line proved harder than Lance had originally planned for. With the Garrison fleet in retreat, Galra frigates began going to lightspeed, blowing past them one by one. Whatever stayed behind was at this point nothing more than a taunt, a reminder that despite their best efforts, they had failed to stop the Galra war machine. _They’re going to Earth. They’re probably landing now… we couldn’t we...no not now, I can’t think like that now. I have to be strong for the team._

Plunging his jaw blade into a Galra cruiser’s bridge gave him some sense of accomplishment. He may not be able to stop them all from reaching Earth, but he would stop as many as he could. Watching Pidge break an adjacent battleship in two reminded him he wasn't in this situation alone. After all, Earth wasn't just his home... they all had something to lose.

“Lance! It’s Hunk. We moved the castle out of danger and Allura’s at the helm what are we doing?”

Hunk’s voice was a small relief, knowing that was was left of team voltron was safe brought a warmness to Lance’s thoughts. _Hope isn’t dead, just mortally wounded._

“Hunk help Allura prep a wormhole jump to Mars. As soon as what's left of the Garrison fleet is away from Jupiter, Pidge and I are coming back and we’re leaving the battle”

From somewhere out of frame Lance could hear Coran shout “what’s a Mars?” before Hunk nodded and shut off the feed.

Turning his attention back to the Galra fleet, he realized it wasn't much a fleet anymore. Most of the ships had long since jumped away, likely to Earth. The remaining stragglers were probably captains cocky enough to think they could destroy a Voltron lion.

Lance and Pidge made short work of the remaining battleships. Finally coming to the realization that the fight was over, he paused a minute to take in his surroundings. _Debris_ , lots of it, like a dense artificial asteroid belt. Over a hundred Garrison dreadnoughts, Galra cruisers mixed in between, _and thousands of bodies_ ; ejected from their ships as they ruptured, now floating aimlessly above magnificent Jupiter. It served as a crushing reminder to the young boy: a reminder of exactly what he had hoped to avoid. The sight was enough to make Lance sick.

“Time to get back to the castle Pidge” he mumbled, quieter than normal. He could tell from the dejected mumble he received in response that he wasn't the only one feeling so crushed.

\-----------------------------------------

The approach to the castle brought the two lions outside the main debris field, but the battle here was clearly just as violent. Extensive damage was visible on the formerly pristine castle ship; it’s white hull marred by black scorches and breaches.

As the red lion got close, Commander Holt opened a private video channel with Lance. Lance could see the fire has long since been put out, the background now filled with bodies under sheets. The most stunning image though, was commander holt, his hands up and under his glasses, covering his eyes and wiping away tears.

“Six ships Lance… six ships” before Lance could say anything, the distraught man continued: “ _Kilimanjaro, Fuji, Matterhorn, Denali, Olympus,_ and me here on the _Everest_ … thats it, six that's all that's left. We lost one hundred and fourteen ships, there were thousands of men on each I don't even want to do the math I-”

“D-don’t do the math, sir. We need to focus on… What have you heard from Earth?” Lance replied, his own emotions starting to get the better of him.

“It’s what I _haven’t_ heard that worries me son… all communications cut out during the last minutes of the battle but the last reports… mass orbital bombardment, troop landings… war unlike anything we’ve seen before” Holt replied, defeated.

“What about Iverson?”

“He said troops had landed in Boston and that was all I heard”

“Garrison HQ?”

“Nothing”

“The United Nations?”

“I’ve got a report saying they tried to surrender before going dark”

Lance thought for a minute… thoughts of his family dwelled on his mind. The news may be grim, but until he heard otherwise… they had to be fine. After all they were _his_ family right?

Sitting back in his chair as the red lion landed in its hangar, Lance pondered his next words carefully. Thinking back to Commander Holt’s offer during the video conference before the battle, Lance knew just what to ask.

“Well, we can’t sit here forever… what do you need me to do?”


	5. A New Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance drops a bombshell at a critical time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the end this time :)

The walk from the hangars to the castle’s command room felt significantly longer than it ever had before. Perhaps part of it was the scorched debris that littered the hallways, or maybe it was the overbearing feeling of dread in knowing what was happening on Earth at this very Instant. Whatever it was, Lance couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Taking his time as he got closer to the control room, he ran over what he was about to say to the team in his head. _Hey guys, look I understand how you all must feel right now but… absolutely not, too formal. I can't  lead us I'm going back to Earth with the Garrison… no to blunt, they’ll think I’m running away._ Lance stopped dead in this tracks, running his left hand through his hair from front to back. _Am I running away?_ He didn’t have time to dwell on the thought as the door opened to reveal an extremely relieved Coran.

“Lance! My boy there you are!” the older man paused to catch his breath, sweat dripping from his chin. “Quiznack that was quite the battle yeah? Come on everyone’s waiting on you!”

Following Coran into the control room, Lance observed his team in action. Keith was helping Allura lift a heavy sheet of metal away from the teleduv interface, while Hunk and Pidge restored power to navigation. Behind all of them, Mars glowed a gentle red in the light from the sun.

“Try realigning the crystal on the left and… Oh Lance!” Hunk dropped what he was doing at the sight of his friend.

“Uh hey Hunk, is everyone okay?” Any carefully planned discussion the newly minted leader had thought up was immediately discarded. Instead he played it by ear.

“Besides the occasional scratch and whatever the hell happened to Shiro? I think we’re good” Pidge snapped, clearly disturbed by everything that had happened.

“Oh I uh… yeah Pidge thats…” Lance struggled to find his words

“Shit, I’m sorry Lance you didn't deserve that, I’m just really mad at myself I should’ve seen something-”

“Stop it right there Pidge” Lance cut her off, suddenly finding a leadership voice, seemingly from thin air.“Whatever the hell happened back there was none of your faults. If anything it was mine, I was the right hand I should have mentioned something back when I first suspected…”

“What do you mean… first suspected” The words rolled off Keith's tongue with a certain piercing power, clearly frustrated that Lance knew something no one else did.

“Oriande, the white hole, back when you were still with the blade Keith. When Allura and Lotor went into the white hole, Shiro pulled me aside. He told me he didn’t feel like himself” Lance explained, rubbing his forearm nervously. He expected a violently angry reaction from the team, but Allura seemed to defy his expectations.

“Then I was right, whatever that was it wasn’t Shiro” she said, opening a map of the Milky Way and surrounding galaxies. “I’m not picking up the black lion’s signal anywhere, nor can I contact our allies outside the system. The Galra must be jamming long range communications” She explained, bringing her hand up to her chin as if pondering her own conclusions.

“So… we’re stuck with no black lion, no Voltron, and no clue where to go next… Lance what do we do?” Pidge asked

Lance couldn’t beat around the bush any longer. If the team was going to hate him for it, so be it, but Lance had to do what he thought was right.

“I know you’re all looking to me for leadership right now” he paused, trying to figure out how to word what was coming next as carefully as possible. “But, there’s something you all need to know…”

Coran chimed in:“What is it Lance? I’m sure whatever it is It’ll be okay if we just...”

“I can’t lead this team and I’m going to fight on Earth with the Garrison!” Lance blurted out.

The mixed screams of “WHAT!?” or “WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?” qued him into the fact that the team was not happy about any aspect of what they just heard.

“You are the Red Paladin Lance! It’s your duty to step up here!” Allura stated harshly. Lance winced under the weight of her words

“Lance what the hell? We need you!” Pidge, her words permeated the air, sinking into Lance’s heart like daggers.

“Wait, wait let's hear him out” Hunk began, but before Lance could even start to explain, he could see Keith marching up to him out of the corner of his eye, clearly fuming. What Keith said pushed Lance over the edge:

“Lance we get it! You’re upset about Earth and it sucks! But right now you’re the leader and…”

 **“** _WELL YEAH AND SO WERE YOU KEITH!_ **”** Lance screamed, unaware of the tears now flowing freely from his face. Keith took a step back as if burned. Pidge’s jaw simply dropped, unsure of what just happened. Hunk scrunched up nervously, well aware of how angry Lance was. Allura looked to Coran for comment, but the ginger simply shook his head. Everyone was too afraid to say anything.

“ _So were you Keith_ ” Repeated Lance, much quieter this time. “You were our leader and we trusted you, and then shiro, or not shiro, but… whoever the _FUCK_ that was came back, and you drifted away with the Blade of Mamora… but we-I still needed you Keith. _I still needed you_ ”

Lance’s tears made small splashes on the cold metal floor. Seeing this, Keith reached forward,mouth open, beginning to form a sentence.

“Lance… I-I”

“Look Keith, you went to go help your people when they needed you. Right now Earth, our home is burning and so I need to go help _my_ people” Lance wiped the tears from his eyes before continuing. “Keith you can fly red, you’ve lead them before, I know you can do it again. Right now, while I’m here, you need to bring the black lion back. Earth needs Voltron.” Lance waited for any form of objection to this, bowing his head unable to face it… but it never came.

“I- okay Lance… I understand” The soft look in Keith’s eyes as he said this put lance back a step. He felt a certain warmth in his chest he never thought possible.

It was Allura who spoke next. “If my people were still here… I would do anything to protect them… just please Lance, be careful”. After she finished her statement, she pulled Lance into a tight hug. Lance was at a loss for words.

“Keep my dad safe, asshole” Pidge smiled, before lightly punching Lance in the arm, and joining the hug.

The sight was too much for Hunk and Coran to bear, who both started tearing up before joining the ever growing group hug.

Lance looked to his right, to see Keith standing off, arms crossed and head down. That wouldn't do, so he reached out, grabbed Keith by the wrist, and dragged him into the hug, blushing all the while. Lance knew he was shuffling a lot of responsibility on to the boy, but he was confident he could handle it.

As the hug broke up, it was Coran, gently choking back a sob, who spoke next: “So what happens now?”

“I- need a ride to the _Everest_ ”

\-----------------------------------------

The entire team rode in the pod to say goodbye to Lance. Hunk landed the small craft gently in the _Everest’s_ Starboard hangar. Lance stepped out of the pod into the hangar, which was alive with activity. Men ran and shouted, jumping from fighter craft to fighter craft. Sparks flew as engineers made quick repairs, and steam rose from vents in the floor. The ceiling was atleast three decks up, with a Garrison and United Nations flags draping down. It felt significantly more grimey than the castle, but to be fair, humanity was thousands of years less advanced.

Commander Holt, still wearing his bloodied grey uniform, greeted them by pulling pidge into a soft hug before turning to Lance.

“Welcome to what's left of the _Everest_ ” Said Holt, with a sarcastic grin.

Holt exchanged simple pleasantries with the team but it didn’t last. Everyone had a mission now, and so, after one last group hug the team began to file back into the pod. The last to board, Keith took a look back. With a somber look, and a sad smile, he rendered a wave to Lance, who barely managed to return the wave before the door closed. A wave of cold sadness crashed over lance at the sight.

Once the pod took off and cleared the hangar, Lance turned to face the now serious looking commander Holt.

“Any updates from Earth?” Lance asked, some semblance of hope in his tone.

“Nothing, unfortunately, the same situation as when we spoke at Jupiter” Holt replied, leading Lance through crowded hallways towards the ships briefing room. The room itself had a large wooden table, with numerous chairs on each side, and a screen embedded into the far wall currently displaying the Garrison logo. A single figure greeted the two as they entered.

“Lance I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Davis, he leads the Third platoon, First company of _Everest’s_ marines. He’s going to get you back to Earth.

The young Lieutenant was tall blonde, and remarkably muscular. A scar dominated the majority of the left side of his face. He wore a green camouflage armor vest, rudimentary compared to the shiney paladin armor Lance was wearing. Before Lance could even say hello, he was stunned when the officer rendered a salute in his direction.

Confused, but remembering his classes in military customs and courtesies back at the Garrison Academy in Arizona, Lance returned the salute.

“Lance, because of your experience as a paladin of Voltron, I’m using my authority of the highest ranking officer still known to be alive to commision you as a Lieutenant Commander” Holt explained, with a small grin.

“Welcome aboard commander McClain” Lt. Davis said, enthusiastically.

On the outside Lance said: “Commander Holt… uh, sir, are you sure about this? I mean… not that I’m complaining, it’s just I’ve been away from the Garrison so long I…” but inside he was screaming: _Did I not just leave team Voltron and dodge a leadership bullet?_

“I’m confident in you Lance, I wouldn’t have asked you here if I didn’t” Holt said, directing Lance to a chair at the table. “Lt. Davis begin the briefing”

The screen that displayed the Garrison logo suddenly flipped over to a map of North America.

“As of 0800 this morning, the Galra fleet began an orbital bombing, and ground offensive campaign against Earth, before we lost contact.” Lt. Davis began, bringing his hand up to the map, and zooming into the New England region. “ Commander Iverson is the last known high ranking officer to potentially still be alive, and his last known position was the Massachusetts State House, in Boston” the Lt. zoomed further, until the map was zoomed into the coastal city. “If he is still alive, Garrison emergency protocol Crimson Tacit, promotes him to the rank of admiral, meaning, he is in command of all surviving Garrison forces.”

Lance turned to Holt, who leaned forward before speaking.

“You know by now Lance, I’m no amazing military leader. That fact alone, and protocol Crimson Tacit makes his recovery a top priority”. The Commander explained.

“Well, I have always wanted to go to Boston” Lance replied, feigning confidence.

Catching Lance’s bluff, the commander donned an even larger smirk before speaking again.

“Well that's good! Because its a 24 hour shuttle ride back to Earth!” Laughing as Lance sank in his seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is definitely the longest I've put out so far. However, I'm so excited for chapter 6, as I'm from Boston myself. Prepare for a gratuitous over indulgence of what I believe to be the greatest city in the world! (even if it is going to be a war torn hell)


	6. The War on the Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance makes it to Boston, mostly in one piece, but the situation there is far worse than expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had SO MUCH FUN writing this chapter. Its not every day I get to overindulge on my love for Boston. I hope you like it too!

Lance awoke from his nap as the shuttle lurched violently. Had he not been restrained in his seat he would have shot up ten feet. The twenty-something marines on board burst into laughter.

“Relax commander! It’s just re-entry!” One croaked out in the gaps of his whooping laughter.

Lance looked around, before remembering there were no windows. He quickly settled for the screen near the door to the shuttle’s cockpit. They were entering Earth’s atmosphere alright, he could make out the distinct North American coastline, with the sun setting just over the horizon. The next thing he noticed, was that the normal yellow-white glow of city lights, was replaced by bright, blazing splotches of orange. _Fires_. The result of a violent orbital bombardment campaign.

Desperate to think of anything else, Lance turned his attention to the shuttle full of marines. They were laughing, telling jokes, seemingly oblivious to the potential hell awaiting them. On closer inspection Lance saw that their armor was the same green camouflage as Lt. Davis’ from earlier. His thoughts stuck to their equipment. Rather than space alloys and Altean alchemy, their armor was kevlar, and ceramic plates. Rather than laser rifles, their guns and magazines were full of bullets. Perhaps after several months with the Alteans, Lance had forgotten just how primitive his species was, _how vulnerable._

 _Surely they know that the odds aren't great._ He thought to himself. _Or maybe they’re just really, really brave._

Suddenly the cockpit door opened, and all chatter in the cabin stopped. Lt. Davis stepped out of the door, sealing it behind him.

“Listen up Marines!” he shouted, greeted by an overwhelming “Yes sir!”

“You’ve all met Lt. Commander Lance, and right now he is your mission!”

Lance could feel every eye in the cramped cabin cling to him, as if he didn’t feel out of place as is. He jolted when a young female marine put her hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry!” she whispered. “Third Platoon’s got your back sir!”

Davis continued: “right now, it’s winter in the northern hemisphere, and Boston is getting one hell of a snowstorm. We’re approaching the cloud layer now, as soon as we’re below it, expect shit to get hot. Am I clear marines?”

“Yes sir!” filled the cabin, before violent turbulence nearly threw Davis into the wall.

Lance nervously watched the screen, which was nothing but grey. Seconds of nervous silence felt like hours. However, when the grey started to fade away, another color began to take its place: _purple._

“Galra cruiser hovering over the city, it sees us!” Shouted the pilot from the front of the shuttlecraft.

Lance felt his helmet collide with the wall behind him as the shuttle veered left violently, and then right, desperately trying to avoid the menacing purple beams that the cruiser flung upwards.

Lance barely heard someone shout “HOLD ON!” when the craft rocked more violent than it had before, accompanied by the horrible sound of screeching metal. Glancing to the front of the shuttle… there was no front of the shuttle, just open air and a rapidly approaching ground. Davis, the pilot, that nice female marine, they were gone. Lance wondered if this was what he had in mind for a heroic death when everything went black.

\-----------------------------------------

Lance jolted awake to the sound of distant gunfire. He was lying on some sort of tile floor. Looking up, he could see the rear half of the shuttle embedded in the ceiling above him, and  a patch of starry sky and clouds visible through the hole it had made. When he sat up and two inches of snow slid off this chest, he put two and two together: _I’ve been out for a while._

He tried to gather his surroundings… he was in… a mall? They had crashed into a mall? There was no power either, the Galra must have destroyed the electrical grid because what buildings he could see through the aforementioned hole in the ceiling were also dark. Hell, he could only see anything because of the light from the burning shuttle.

The young paladin staggered to his feet in immense pain. He quickly realized he was alone, as he was surrounded by the bodies of the marines he'd just been riding with. The sight was horrendous and lance wanted to vomit.

“Thank you altean engineers for internal inertial dampeners” he said aloud, hoping dark humor would make the situation easier to bare. It didn’t.

Lance stumbled over to his helmet, which shimmered in the dancing flame light. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was smashed almost completely, and thus useless. Looking down, he noticed his armor was in similar condition. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t even summon his bayard. _Must of been a hell of a crash._

Paladin instinct kicked in quickly. Lance was alive, and that meant he still had a mission to accomplish. He started searching for an exit, before stumbling over a body, and falling to his knees. This was the marine that had joked about his “adverse reaction” to re-entry. Lance thought back to his broken bayard, and eyed the marine’s rifle, which was laying by his side.

“I’m really sorry Sergeant, but, I don’t think you need this as much as I do”. Lance cringed at the very idea of talking to a corpse, before collecting himself, and securing the extra magazines on his belt.

Maybe a few hundred meters down the hall, lance could see a collapsed portion of wall, which he used to escape out onto the street.

Lance was greeted by a harsh snowy wind. The storm had died down, but even so, the dark city felt so cold and lifeless. Lance could see that snow had piled up to two feet in the road, and was fresh… no footprints.

The city was so quiet, occasionally in the distance he could hear gun fire, sometimes a scream. Every now and again, the galra cruiser in the sky would fire a beam into the ground, resulting in a fiery explosion before everything returned back to the dead quiet.

Sliding down off the rubble and into the deep snow, Lance came across a frozen over sign, which told him he was on “Boylston Street” and that this mall the shuttle crashed in was the “Prudential center”. Judging that he was relatively far inland from the ocean, he figured he had crashed somewhere west from the Massachusetts State House. The gunfire seemed to indicate that the 15th division may still be alive and fighting, and if so, Iverson may be too. Confidence in his mission restored, Lance raised his rifle and proceeded down Boylston.

As he moved slowly east, he couldn't help but see the extensive damage the city had sustained. Burned cars filled the road, visible through the piling snow. The battle here had been swift and violent, yet battle was not the word for it. It was a massacre. Collapsed storefronts scattered debris into the snow. Smashed windows were more common than intact ones for sure. The wind whistled through the hollow ruins, as if it was the voice of the city’s most likely deceased residences.

Coming to an intersection marked “Exeter street”, Lance found himself outside the city’s public library. The building, despite sustaining damage, had maintained a certain elegance. It’s stone carvings and large windows mostly intact. However, when lance heard galra soldiers coming down Exeter street, it became nothing more than a place to hide.

Taking cover in one of the open doorways, Lance observed the soldiers through his rifle’s scope. Ten flesh and blood foot soldiers, five drones, and three prisoners. Lance weighed his options: While a bullet would be effective at taking down a flesh and blood soldier, it would be all but useless against the drones. However, when he witnessed the prisoners being forced to his knees, he found his thought process shortened significantly. _They're going to execute them._

As the drones lined up in firing squad formation, Lance took a shot. With a loud crack, the bullet struck an unsuspecting footsoldier center mass, bringing him down with a scream. Lance fired off five more shots, hitting at least two more Galra before they stopped worrying about their prisoners, and fired blindly at the library. The lazers chipped stone and heated metal, casting debris all around Lance. When he heard one soldier shout something akin to “explosives launcher” he knew it was time to move.

He broke out into a dead sprint deeper into the library as a fireball engulfed the door frame he had just been sitting in. Stopping to catch his breath, he wondered if the galra thought they killed him as he turned around to look. When three galra burst through the door, Lance fired four more shots, unaware if any struck their targets, and moved into the bookshelves.

He found cover in a section about natural disasters, and peered through the shelves. Six soldiers entered the room, along with two drones. _Maybe the prisoners got away?_ He hoped.

The footsteps of soldiers grew louder, and closer. They were clearing the aisles, looking for him. Lance knew he couldn't take them all on, and so he slipped out of the aisle, trying to find an exit.

He found one that brought him back out onto Boylston. He looked over to where the soldiers had been before, and instead of seeing the prisoners, he saw three galra bodies; their purple blood now staining the snow. The three he had killed. _They got away. Oh fuck thank the stars._

Lance continued down Boylston street. Knowing that his last encounter was far too close, he stuck to the shadows. When he thought he heard a patrol coming, he would duck into a deserted store front and wait it out. He couldn’t risk it. Without any form of explosives, he couldn't take down the drones, and with numerous foot soldiers and damaged armor… well the risk wasn't worth the reward anyways.

After another ten or so minutes of trudging through the cold, unforgiving New England winter, Lance found himself at the Intersection of Arlington Street. Up the hill he could see his goal: the State House. It had spotlights illuminating the front which could only mean one thing: the 15th was still fighting.

Getting off the road was a priority. He instead decided that the park across the street, which another frozen sign labeled “the public garden” was his best option.

While the park was perhaps safer than the open road, it sure didn’t feel like it. The rustling of tree branches in the wind made Lance feel uneasy. He could hear movement in the snow, but it definitely didn't sound Galra. _Must be animals or something_. However, he couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched.

 

That's because he was:

 

“You there don’t move!”

 

Before Lance could even react, 15 flashlights illuminated him, each of those attached to a rifle. These weren’t Galra.

“Woah woah I’m Human d-don’t shoot! A-are you guys with the 15th?” Lance stammered, hoping he wasn’t about to catch a bullet.

“Whos asking?”

“My names Lan- Lieutenant Commander McClain from the G.G.S. _Everest_ ”

Lance let out a sigh as the rifles lowered to the ground one by one.

“What the hell are you doing here? Where’s the fleet?”

“The fleet’s at Mars… look… I need to get to Admiral Iverson, now”.

“Admiral? You mean commander?”

“Not anymore” .

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

Coming up the steps of the State House, lands could see dozens of injured men on stretchers, and medics not looking so great themselves tending to them. Soldiers were running all over, some moving to armored vehicles and rolling out, others moving heavy supplies and standing guard. Occasionally, a flare would be fired into the sky, illuminating the Statehouse, and a loud bang would make Lance jump as the artillery cannons in the street shelled Galra positions across the Charles River in Cambridge. It looked like every war movie he had ever seen, except this was real. Too real.

Upon entry to the State House rotunda, Lance noticed the once immaculate pink marble was now only lit by floodlights, with noisy generators providing what power they could. At the center of the room was a table, and a certain familiar grumpy one eyed man barking orders to people left and right. Lance hoped that Iverson wouldn't remember him by name.

“I’ll be damned! Cadet McClain!”

_Shit._

“So you’re a paladin of this Voltron I’ve heard so much about from Sam… it looks like I was wrong about you” Said Iverson, with a smile forming from ear to ear.

Lance couldn’t believe what he had just heard. This couldn't be his old asshole instructor from the academy. It had to be an imposter, or a long lost twin. But before Lance could say anything, a hand was extended, clearly waiting to be shook.

“Actually, Admiral, its Lieutenant Commander now” Lance said as he grabbed Iversons hand firmly. “Commander Holt commissioned me”

“Wait Admiral I- Crimson Tacit huh?”

“Yes sir”

“It's good to know Holt is still alive… but what about the fleet?”

Lance had to clear his throat before answering:

“Only six ships made it”

The newly minted admiral took a solitary step back, before wiping the dirt off his face with both hands.

“Then it's as bad as I thought... I’ve been trying to reach the fleet but all offworld communication is being jammed. The situation on the ground isn’t outstanding either. We’re holding our own here in Boston, and I’ve got similar reports from London, Beijing, Seattle, and Cape Town, but other than that…” Iverson paused to collect himself before continuing. “ In the first few minutes of the bombardment, the Galra went after key military targets. Garrison HQ in Paris is a crater. I think the academy in Arizona met a similar fate. The UN tried to surrender, but as if to send a message to the rest of the planet, the Galra annihilated New York, I haven't heard anything from that entire region since”

The news crushed Lance and yet despite this, he knew exactly what he wanted to ask next:

“What about Cuba?”

“Cuba? Oh right, you’re from there aren’t you?” Iverson shot Lance a worried look.

“I’m sorry McClain, but the Galra didn’t want little safe havens for our people to hide in. One of their initial targets in the orbital bombardment were the planet’s islands… the caribbean… cuba in particular was… it was completely obliterated… if there's any survivors they are few in numbers”

Lance desperately cling to that last part. _There may be some survivors. Which means they could still be alive._ Despite this small ray of hope, it was a hell of a fight to choke back tears.

“Listen, sir, I know the situation is bad here on the ground, but Commander Holt specifically asked me to bring you back to the fleet… do you have a shuttle craft something we can get off world in?”

Iverson was silent for a moment before answering. “We have one but, you’re asking me to leave my men here, what of them? Not to mention the galra cruiser hovering over the back bay!”

Lance considered his next words extremely carefully. “I understand it's a difficult position, but right now you are the highest ranking human being still known to be alive. We need you at the fleet”

“I- understand but the cruiser-”

“Won’t be a problem, we just need to fly out low over the ocean before entering orbit”

Iverson turned around, looking to his men, all of whom were observing quietly.

“Fine… give me some time to make the preparations”


	7. Kilimanjaro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance successfully brings Admiral Iverson back to the fleet, but now he faces a new challenge: The weight of the very leadership he thought he had escaped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was one of the first ones I had planned out when I first had the idea for this story. Writing it was a little challenging, but I'm somewhat happy with how it turned out.

It had been over a year since Lance flew any sort of Human spacecraft. Even then, that was just a simulator. Garrison ships were nothing like the lions: far more cramped, way more buttons, controls, and gages, and much less stable. Sure the Garrison’s ships got about fifty years more advanced thanks to the research Commander Holt brought back to Earth, but they were nowhere near anything of Altean design. Where the pods were sleek and elegant, Garrison shuttles were blocky, and angular, and felt as if they had been slapped together last minute.

Engaging the downward thrusters, the shuttle hovered gently over the Boston Common, where the 15th Division had set up a makeshift landing pad and staging area. To his right, Lance could see Iverson squirm in the co-pilot seat, uncomfortable at the idea of leaving his men behind, even if it was for the greater good.

Lance flicked two switches above him, before pushing the throttle forward. The shuttle coasted low over Downtown Boston, towards the ocean, narrowly avoiding the darkened skyscrapers. Occasionally below them he could see an explosion, or a laser beam. The fight for Boston was still on, and it didn’t look to be over any time soon.

Soon they were over Boston harbor, and then the ocean. Lance pushed to full throttle, watching the city disappear behind them over the horizon. There was nothing but water, glistening gently in the light of a half moon just in front of them. Lance took the scene in one more time, because he probably wouldn’t be back on Earth for quite some time. Finally with a sigh, he pulled back on the stick as hard as he could, and the nose of the shuttle lurched upwards the shuttle creaking as it did.

Lance hated the way the shuttle shook violently as it rocketed up over the atmosphere. He watched the Atlantic Ocean get further and further behind them on a rear facing screen until suddenly Earth’s horizon was visible, and with it, the sun. Lance’s attention immediately became focused on avoiding the Galra blockade, which, was made of the same few thousand ships that ripped humanity a new one at Jupiter.

“Set a course for the moon, if we can get to it, I may be able to patch into what's left of the interplanetary communications network” Iverson said, watching the Galra warships in the distance.

Lance dodged and weaved  in between the debris of satellites and space stations to stay off the Galran sensors. Before he even knew it, he was beyond the blockade. Without any further obstacles, he set a course for the moon.

 -----------------------------------------

As the shuttle got close, Lance noticed Iverson manipulating numerous switches his side of the cockpit, until a screen between them flashed to life, filled with the relieved face of one much cleaner looking Sam Holt.

“Mitch, thank god you’re still alive. I see McClain got to you in one piece?”

Iverson looked over to Lance, frowning before continuing

“He almost didn’t but, I’ll let him explain”

Lance took a deep breath before telling his story.

“Our shuttle was shot down over West Boston, I made it because of my Altean armor, which mind you, is now destroyed, but… well sir no one else made it”

Holt could see Lance was visibly shaken.

“Lance it’s okay, they all knew the risks. This is war, the unfortunate reality is this happens sometimes”

 _WAR._ Lance had been at war for over a year now, and it had never been like this. Maybe it was the mobile nature of Voltron, save one planet, move to the next, never stick long enough to see the true price. Or maybe it was the fact that for all this time, Lance had been in a nearly invincible space robot, and that without it, things were a lot more deadly.

“Well Sam, since I guess I’m now an admiral, what’s the situation at the fleet?” Iverson spoke up, breaking the long silence.

“I’m sure Lance told you we have six ships, and that we’re hiding out at Mars” Holt replied.

“Yeah he did, so tell me what I don’t know”

“Well we can’t stay at Mars forever, it’s only a matter of time before the Galra figure out where we are and send a flotilla to eliminate us. We’re evacuating our surface facilities and taking what supplies we can but we’re going to need a new hiding spot sooner, rather than later”

Lance looked into the rear facing screen, Earth sat there, distant, with purple specks surrounding it. The same Galra Fleet that ripped humanity a… “ _Jupiter”_ rolled off his tongue, just loud enough for it to be audible to both Holt and Iverson.

“What was that Lance?” said Holt, visibly confused.

“Jupiter!” Lance said louder this time. “Look this is going to sound really really grim, but even though the debris field there from the battle is now a graveyard, it’s the perfect hiding spot! The Galra won’t expect us to go back there, and to any passing ships we’ll look like more debris!”

Both Holt and Iverson took a minute to consider the possibility before looking at each other and nodding.

“Good thinking Lance! I’m glad I put you on that mission!” expressed Holt.

Lance absolutely beamed, as he was never someone that got all that many compliments. He felt a new surge of confidence, as if he was ready to take on the world… until Holt spoke again.

“There is another problem… _Kilimanjaro’s_ entire command team was killed at Jupiter. They need a new commanding officer.

“I think I know someone who would fit perfectly” Iverson exclaimed, making eye contact with Lance.

“I think you’re right! Lance has indeed proven himself, I do think he’d make a great commander!” Holt replied, with the warmest of smiles.

Lance, however, froze: “W-what me- I-I could never- there's no way- can’t you just take someone from the crew I-”

Lance stopped when he felt Iverson reach across the cockpit and grab his arm. Unable to speak, he simply listened.

“McClain right now we need someone who is an expert on the Galra. If you’re a paladin of Voltron, not only do you fit that bill, but it means you’re already the kind of leader we need. I was wrong about you at the academy, but I know that now.I’m promoting you to commander, and we need you on the _Kilimanjaro._ ”

Lance could barely manage to nod.  

\-----------------------------------------

After depositing Iverson aboard the _Everest,_ Lance flew the shuttle over to _Kilimanjaro_. When he landed and disembarked, he was greeted by a line of about 10 officers in those familiar grey uniforms. Their faces were stern, and they didn't flinch in the slightest. In the distance someone called “Commander on deck! Present-ARMS!”

Lance was startled when all 10 officers rendered a crisp, synchronized salute, but just like before with Lt. Davis, he returned the salute. Another officer, a short red haired woman, marched down the line, with a friendly smile that put Lance at relative ease.

“Welcome aboard _Kilimanjaro_ commander! I’m you’re X.O. Lieutenant Commander Allison Reams, If you want to follow me I’ll take you to your quarters” she said, motioning for him to follow.

As he followed her, he got a good look at the hangar he was in. It was exactly the same as the one aboard the _Everest_. He wasn’t surprised though, as they were the exact same class of ship. The only real difference was the word ‘KILIMANJARO” which adorned the hull of the ship in big white letters. He watched the flight crews scatter to ready some of the fighters for combat. As deckhands sprinted past him, he almost tripped over a cart carrying ammunition. One thing was for sure, the castle was never this busy.

They entered an elevator, which brought them to a hallway. The hallways aboard this ship were so much smaller than the castle. The walls were a dark, metallic-blueish grey, with white-blue lights that ran along the ceiling. Occasionally, there was a screen displaying various information embedded into the walls, as well as message boards for things like meal times, duty schedules, and so on. It all appeared very functional, but where the castle lacked life, _Kilimanjaro_ was full of it. They passed Officers and Enlisted personnel alike, some running with papers, others patrolling the decks, and some just standing around talking. Each aspect of the commotion was unique but, there was one constant: the vast majority of them stopped to stare at their new commander as he walked by. Lance couldn’t read how they were judging him, but they couldn't Imagine they were happy about being lead by some nineteen year old kid. The looks made him feel uneasy, and unwelcome. After all, these people probably knew others in the fleet, the fleet which, was destroyed no more than two hours ago. Their own pain was just as fresh as his.

“So, Voltron huh?” Reams said, trying to strike up a conversation.

“Uh yeah” Lance replied, glad for the sudden distraction from the looks of the crew. “I guess you could say I _literally_ dropped off the face of the Earth a year ago, ended up in space in one of the lions, and I’ve been fighting the Galra ever since”

“I read your file, you left with two other cadets and Takashi Shriogane”

“Yeah that sounds right”

“So there has to be a fifth right? Is it another Human?”

“Oh yeah thats…” Lance paused at the thought of Keith. He couldn’t help but wish the red paladin was here to coach him through this. “Keith Kogane, he dropped out of the garrison a year before we left Earth”

“You like him don’t you?”

Lance nearly jumped out of his boots at the question. He could feel his face blush, and he only managed to stutter out a broken “w-what” through the intense internal monologue of panic.

“Because you smiled when you brought him up and it's the first time you smiled since you got here” Reams replied with a grin. “Anyways here we are, take this tablet, it's yours. You can use it to reach me if you need me. I’ll be up in the Combat Information Center if you want to come up there after the commander's meeting that's later today”. She quickly issued a salute, and moved on down the hallway.

Lance opened the door to his new “home”. It was grey, just like every other room on this ship, and was no bigger than his room on the castle.  To the left, sat a bed, which was indented into the wall. To the right was a desk, which had a computer, and a small model of the _Kilimanjaro_ encased in glass. Directly ahead of him was a locker, built into the wall, and a full body mirror mounted next to it. Boxes of the previous commander’s personal effects were stacked in the corner. They were full of books, pictures, novelties, etc. He made a mental not to go through them and see what was worth keeping.

Lance slid his scratched, cracked chestplate up and over his head, taking a deep breath with the new found mobility. He opened the locker to store it, and was surprised when he found a grey command uniform, just like the one Holt wears, and a full set of marine combat armor. Lance assumed it belonged to the last commander, until “McClain” sewn on to the combat uniform, and engraved on a small badge on the command one. He quickly discarded his armor on the bunk, leaving him only in his dirtied flight suit. Taking the grey uniform out of the locker, a small paper note fell out of the sleeve. It read:

 

_Lance, I’m sure you feel way over your head right now, but know that we all believe in you. We wouldn’t have put you here if you weren’t capable of great things._

_With utmost respect,_

_-Samuel Holt,_

_Commander, G.G.S. Everest_

 

Lance removed his flight suit, and gently put on the uniform. Much to his surprise, it fit nearly perfectly. Lance stood and stared at himself in the mirror. He had long dreamed of this uniform, and commanding his own ship. Those dreams felt so childish now, as if he had no idea what leadership really was back at the academy. He didn’t notice the tears streaming down his cheek until he saw them in the mirror.

He slumped into his desk chair. For the first time since Boston, he let thoughts of his family wash over him. _They’re dead_ . He thought to himself. _Cuba is gone there's no way they could of…_. The simple tears became a loud cry, sniffles, sobs and all. From his birth family his thoughts moved on to his adoptive family, the Voltron Paladins. He knew he couldn’t stay there, but he missed them so much, especially Keith.

 _Reams was right… I like him a lot._ Lance had liked him ever since the academy, however, this is the first time he had ever admitted it to himself. At first, it felt good, as if the fiery, mullet clad paladin was in the room with him, providing a warmth wherever he went. _Yeah, I like Keith._ It was weirdly reassuring, to get that off his chest, even if he was admitting it to no one but himself.However, it quickly turned into feelings of loneliness. In fact, Lance had never felt so alone. He curled up on himself as another tear fell to the cold metal deck.


	8. The Things We Leave Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back on the castle, Keith thinks about the things important to him.

**Meanwhile on the Altean castle ship in the Triangulum Galaxy**

 

Keith threw the empty water pouch across the control room into the pile that had formed near the black paladin seat. He let himself fall back at the waist, laying back on the floor beneath the numerous holo screens he had opened. The holo screens were  all over the place really, some held maps of the local galactic cluster, others, pictures of that menacing red dreadnought. At his feet were stacks of Altean data pads that listed known Galra bases in the region. Despite all of this, he couldn’t pin the black lion. It had been days, and the thought of never finding it plagued Keith. It took them an eternity to find Shiro last time disappeared, and as it turns out, they hadn't even gotten the right Shiro!

Running his hands through his greasy hair, he considered getting some sleep. After all, he hadn’t gotten any more than a few hours since they left Lance behind in the Sol System.

 _Lance._ The thought of him made Keith sweat. Was he okay? Was he even still alive? Keith had no family on Earth to worry about like the rest of the team. In a way, it was to him like any other planet they needed to save. Keith really had no personal stake in its safety… _until now._ Leaving Lance behind like that, maybe Keith finally understood why everyone on the team was in such a low mood. For once, the very scope of the war was out of their hands.

Allura and Coran were their usual selves, but they could feel the sadness amongst the team. They did what they could to lighten the mood, yet it only went so far. If anything, it only brought back their own pained memories of their desperate and pained fight to save Altea. Hunk was so stressed that he had committed himself to working on the yellow lion just to try and keep occupied. Not only did he not know about the safety of his family, but now his best friend was off the grid too. Pidge, meanwhile, was the lucky one. She got to see her dad still alive, aboard the _Everest_. Her brother was also aboard the castle with them. That said, her mother was on Earth at the start of the attack, and so, she too still had something to worry over.

Keith sat back up and swiped all the screens over to the side, before opening up one more in front of him. It was a picture, and in Keith’s opinion a dumb one. They had been celebrating Hunk’s birthday when Lance snuck up on him, threw a party hat on his head, and snapped a picture. As dumb as it was, it was the only picture of the two together that Keith had. The stupid grin Lance was wearing warmed his heart as stared at it.

Looking beyond the image, out the “windows” into space, Keith could see the Milky Way galaxy beyond the mighty Andromeda. Sure it looked small, being nearly three million light years away, but it was there. Keith looked back to the picture, and thought again of Lance. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the other boy from his mind. Maybe he should've pressed him harder, kept him from going back to fight. If Lance were to get hurt... well Keith didn't want to think about that.

Suddenly he heard two very distinct Altean voices making their way down the hall towards him. Keith closed the picture, and moved his work back to the front. He then brushed his hair vigorously in a last ditch attempt to make himself look less disheveled.

It didn't work.

“Anyways that's when king Alfor- AH- quiznack, keith my boy, you’re still here?” Coran said, surprised.

“Keith, it's been nearly a week since we left Sol, when was the last time you got decent rest?” Allura spoke in a concerned tone.

Keith strongly considered lying, telling them he had slept well last night, but he knew Coran would just check the castle logs and see right through his fabrication.

“Not since… the night after we wormholed here” Keith replied, looking to the floor to hide his embarrassment.

The two Alteans exchanged a worried glance with each other before Coran sighed and continued.“You’re worried about finding the real shiro aren’t you?” When Keith didn’t respond immediately, Coran’s mouth opened slightly in sudden realization. “Oh… Lance then?”

Coran had been right on both counts, but for some reason, Keith was more focused on Lance. If the real shiro had never come back in the first place, then to Keith, there was no reason to grieve. He already had during his stint as the black paladin. Lance however, Lance was fresh, he had just been here, and now everyone could feel the gaping hole he left.

Realizing he had yet to provide the older man with an answer, Keith simply let out a short nod, his gaze never leaving the floor.

Allura spoke next: “Keith I… I’m worried about him too but, staying awake staring at maps isn’t going to keep him safe”. Allura sat down next to him, and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “The good news is we’re building the single largest coalition fleet so far! Lotor is committing hundreds of warships. Olkarion says their air traffic control is overloaded with ships willing to join the fight-”

“Yeah well none of it matters!” Keith cut her off abruptly. Seeing Allura’s shock he quickly changed tone. “Without Voltron we don’t stand a chance against Haggar’s armada”. He said it quiet and somber, waiting for Allura to scold him for not having hope. However, she didn’t:

“Then we’ll get Voltron. However right now, we don’t have anything to go off of. You need some rest in the meantime. We’ll tell you if we see anything”

Keith nodded and made his way to the door, he watched Allura move to her consol before she turned to face him.

“And Keith, have a little faith in Lance. He's going to be alright”

\-----------------------------------------

The halls of the castle felt so empty as Keith worked his way back to his room. He could feel Red hum in his mind. She had welcomed him as her paladin with “open arms”. The once-again red paladin had hoped she wouldn't, that she would refuse him, forcing Lance to stay but she didn't. Yet, this time something was different, like there was something new on the back of both their minds, something heavy. Perhaps it was their shared concern.

**_I miss the blue one too._ **

Keith made it back to his room and hung his jacket on the wall. He then crashed onto his bed with an unforgiving thud. He fiddled with his sheets, trying to find comfort but failing. Eventually he just gave up and sat on top of them, staring at the cold ceiling.

“I Should never have let him go” he muttered into his hands.

**_He had to protect his home_ **

“I know but, I had just gotten back from the blade, I had only just got to see him again… what if-”

**_Don’t think like that. He will be okay._ **

If Keith was being honest, even Red didn't seem so sure. He spent time with the Blade of Mamora, he knew just how brutal the collapsing Empire, and by default Haggar's fleet, could be. 

Lance’s words repeated in Keith’s head over and over. _I still needed you Keith. I still needed you._ Keith felt an immense guilt pin him down. He could bring himself to move as a tear formed in his eye. _Is this how he felt when I was gone?_

Keith had to come to terms with the matter he’d been trying to forget this whole time: there's a reason Lance means this much to him. Sure Lance could be annoying sometimes, with the loud voice, and obnoxious laugh and stupid, beautiful hair, and yeah, Keith like Lance. Keith wiped the tear from his eye. He had had crushes before, but they never lasted. Whenever Keith moved to a new foster home, he had to move on he got used to it. Lance was different. Lance was the one that was supposed to stay. Lance was the one that was there with him when Shiro vanished. Lance was the one who had his back. _Lance was different…_ and now he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is a bit shorter than the last few. This is because:  
> A. I'm not real good at writing for Keith  
> B. I've never had anything more than a dumb crush and therefore SUCK at writing about love.  
> I have this week off though, and thus a lot of free time. Get ready for the next few chapters, things are going to ramp up.


	9. Rallying Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's left of the fleet can't seem to agree what to do next, but Lance has a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would argue that this chapter strays from Voltron more than any other, but the familiarization with the Kilimanjaro is essential to the plot! It'll get back on track next chapter!  
> Also Lance is really smart and a great tactician and you can't convince me otherwise.
> 
> See end notes for a topical lesson in Astrophysics!

When the tablet Reams had given him lit up with “Commander’s conference, 10 minutes” Lance made a sprint to the door at the back of his room, which was a small personal bathroom. Staring into the mirror, it was extremely obvious he had been crying for nearly an hour now. In a desperate attempt to cover it up, he washed his face and combed his hair. He then stood up straight in the mirror, and looked over his uniform. He pulled it down at the waist, grey fabric sliding over his skin until taught. It fit absolutely perfectly.

“You can do this” He repeated to himself in the mirror.

A ringing noise brought him back to the screen at his desk. He sat down just as the screen divided itself into six segments, one for the five other commanders, including Holt, and one for Iverson. They all looked much older than Lance, and beyond experienced. He recognized a few of them, for example Commander Erica Ichpujani of the _Matterhorn._ She was the first person to land on Europa before Lance was even born.

“Commander McClain, glad to see you’ve made yourself at home” Holt said with his trademark smile.

“Yes while I share Holt’s sentiment, we don’t have much time” Iverson began. As he spoke, a second screen adjacent to the first displayed a map of the solar system. “Right now, the only territorial holdings we still have are the orbital fuel depots at Venus, and the Mercury solar arrays. We still have the Gagarin Installation on the moon, which has key dry dock facilities for our ships, but I’d bet money the Galra will be gearing up a strike force anytime now.”

Commander Anderson of the _Fuji_ spoke up at that “Well then maybe we should commit the fleet to protecting it, use that as our new base of operations rather than hiding out in this damned debris field”

Ichpujani scoffed. “The fleet? We have SIX SHIPS. If we try to hold the Galra in a direct confrontation, we’ll get fucking curb stomped just like here at Jupiter, but considering you’re aware of the debris we’re hiding in, I think you know of what that looks like.”

“Well we can’t just sit on our ass and do nothing!” Commander Otieno of the _Olympus_ shouted.

Lance watched as the commanders turned on one another, arguing and bickering. Had the meeting been in person, he was certain a fist or two would be thrown. He noticed Iverson trying desperately to calm everyone down, while Holt just pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing his glasses to his forehead. Lance had yet to say anything to the group, until he had an idea.

When Iverson finally got everyone calm, Lance made his move.

“I… have an idea”

He could feel every eye on him, even if it was just through a screen.

“The Galra may be thousands of years more advanced than us, but their war efforts still require supply lines. When they invade a system, they'll usually establish a supply base on a dwarf planet near the edge of the solar system, a place to manage the operation” He explained.

Everyone was silent, for a second Lance thought he had done something wrong, until Holt spoke next.

“The _Everest’s_ sensors picked up massive activity at Pluto before the invasion”

“Pluto of course!” Lance screamed, before he brought his tone back down. “The numerous moons make for a perfect sensor array. They’ve likely set up a sensor on each of the four smaller moons, with the main base on Pluto. This would give them coverage of the entire system”

The other commanders listened intently.

“The problem, for them, is that the only place the sensors won’t have good coverage is the space around Pluto itself. We could hide a ship behind Charon, and launch an operation from there” Lance explained

“Right, that sounds fine and dandy, but how are we going to get past the sensors in the first place?” Anderson replied

“Thats easy. The sensors aren’t perfectly accurate if we have two dreadnoughts fly within a kilometer of each other, on the long range sensors they'll look like one ship. If the second ship then creates a diversion by attacking one of the sensors, say, the one on Kerberos, _Kilimanjaro_ can slip in undetected”

Lance saw Iverson grin like never before.

“McClain that's absolutely genius but, how do you intend to deal with the base?”

Finding extreme confidence in the complement, Lance smiled from ear to ear.

“A really big fucking nuke sir, we can’t drop it from orbit, the particle barriers will absorb most of the blast, but the marines and I can get inside the base and rig it to blow. The action will disrupt the Galra forces just enough that we may be able to hold the line at the Gagarin installation”

Lance could see Iverson’s look of approval. It made him feel particularly proud.

“Excellent, Anderson, I’m assigning _Fuji_ to this one, take all direction from Commander McClain” He said

Lance leaned back in his chair. Maybe he had made the right decision to come here after all.

\-----------------------------------------

Taking a deep breath, Lance stepped into _Kilimanjaro’s_ Combat Information Center. Just like the castle command room, this was the brain of the ship, but it was much more alive. It was a big room, two decks high. On the second deck was a balcony, with dozens of soldiers on computers with headsets. On the lower deck, at the center of the room was a table, the top of which was a map screen displaying the solar system. Toward the front of the room was the helm, manned by a young lieutenant. As far as Lance could see there weren't any windows, meaning that the pilot had to operate on instruments alone. After all, they were in the exact middle of the ship. Young enlisted personnel ran around, passing notes and information, getting papers signed, and scrambling from console to console. Everyone froze when Reams noticed Lance enter the room.

“Commander on deck!” she shouted.

All eyes turned to Lance, those same eyes that, an hour ago made him feel as if he shouldn't be here. Lance knew this was his one and only chance to prove his worth to his crew. He marched right up to the table at the center and picked up the phone attached to it by a curly cord.

“Patch me through to the entire ship”

Lance waited a second, listening to the sound of intercoms crackling to life, and echoing down the hallways. He brought the phone gently to his mouth and began.

“Attention on ship, this is your commander” Lance made brief eye contact with Reams before continuing. “The fight for Earth has drained you. I know this. Right now you probably want nothing more than to fly home and liberate our world… but we can’t, and the unfortunate reality is, while the Galra focus on Earth, we can hit them elsewhere, and put a halt to their efforts”

Lance witnessed a few officers on the upper balcony let out a subtle nod.

“Right now, I know some of you are thinking, who is this son of a bitch kid who I’m supposed to take orders from? I only ask you to let me prove myself to you. As we speak, the _Fuji_ is moving into formation behind us, and together we’re going to Pluto. There, is the main Galra supply base for their entire operation. We’re going to deliver a really big fucking nuke, and blast them off that rock.”

The nodding became less subtle.

“I won’t bullshit you, not everyone is going to make it home safely, but I promise you this: If we’re going to go down fighting, were going to take as many of the purple bastards with us. For Earth, for our families, we fight” Lance hung up the phone, and listened. Silence filled the air, and the tension was palpable.

Suddenly loud cheers and hollars echoed down the halls. Lance turned around when he heard the man at the helm clapping, and before he knew it, the entire C.I.C. had joined in. As the clapping was joined by cheering Lance moved up to the table, and zoomed the map into Pluto. He looked to Reams, who nodded with a smile before he turned back to the helm.

“Helm! Set a course for Pluto”

\-----------------------------------------

_The man stared at Lance, unblinking. He wore a heavy winter coat, several layers of clothing protruding out from his collar. Behind him, a skyline, bright and rich, decorated the night sky. It looked so familiar... it was Boston. Yet somehow it was different, it was alive. The Galra... were they not here?_

_Surprised, Lance looked down... his paladin armor was damaged and charred. He lifted both his hands, staring at the palms in disbelief. There was so much blood. It rolled off his fingertips, and dripped to the snow below._

_Now at his feet lay a body, a marine, twisted and broken. The crash. Flames danced, casting a gentle glow on the body._

_"NO!" Lance tried to scream. It was muffled._

_Turning his head back upward, the lights were gone. The city was dark. A light snow fell around him._

_The man... his clothes burned. His head bleeding. He was crying. Behind him a Galra battlecruiser hovered in the sky._

_"The war was never supposed to come here!" The man pleaded. "You were supposed to prevent this!"_

_"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Lance cried._

_"You could've saved us"_

_The battlecruiser began to glow, and a beam, of unforgiving violet tore down Lance's field of vision until all he saw was white._

With a scream, Lance shot upward from his bunk, slamming his head on the low ceiling that encased it.

Struggling to find his breath, he checked the clock built into the wall. In a gentle blue glow, it read "0530"

Time to wake up. There was a war to be won.

\-----------------------------------------

The _Everest Class_ dreadnoughts were by far the fastest ships humanity had built to date, but the flight to Pluto was still a week long. Lance took the time to socialize with the crew. In the mornings, he joined the marines in the starboard side hangar for a workout.  It was often intense, alternating from run days in which they would sprint laps around the hangar, to endurance days which Lance could only describe as 'push-up hell'. At every lunch, he played cards in the mess hall with the engineering staff.At first, they were a bit weary to invite the commander to their game, but when he challenged them, not unlike he did with Keith, and ultimately they dealt him in. Some evenings, he would join a few officers in the lounge and play music. They had loaned him a guitar, and by the third day more than 300 of the ship’s crew had packed into the relatively small lounge to listen to them play. The smell of smoke and whiskey filled the air, and behind him, Lance could hear some older officers playing darts. Life aboard the warship had seemed somewhat normal.

However, it wasn’t all fun and games. The weight of responsibility crushed down on the young former paladin. No matter how anyone looked at it, he was responsible for every single one of the 2,371 men and women aboard the _Kilimanjaro_. Every fighter pilot, mechanic, engineer, marine, intelligence analyst etc. He would never admit to it, but it was changing Lance. He smiled less, and his focus became the war effort, and the well being of his crew. After all, that's what a good leader should do right?

Lance often thought back to Keith’s time as the Black Paladin. Keith’s selfless devotion to the team, and to the mission was a source of inspiration for him, and a model to learn by. After all, it was Keith, and Lance really did like him.

All of a sudden, he was startled by a blaring alarm. It was day five of the seven day journey, and the _Kilimanjaro_ and _Fuji_ were approaching Neptune for a gravity assist maneuver. Pulling on his grey uniform top as he entered the C.I.C., he assessed the situation.

“Sir a single Galra cruiser has spotted us, it’s on an intercept course” shouted one of the officers on the balcony.

“How long do we have until intercept?”

“Three minutes!”

“Helm how long until we swing around Neptune?”

“About four minutes sir!”

Lance considered the facts carefully. The two ships could easily take down a lone Galra warship, however if it saw that there were two ships, rather than just one, the jig was up, and the entire plan was shot.

From the row of consoles on the main floor, one of the young officers shouted: "Sir, Neptune's erratic magnetic field will block their long range signal attempts but the second we swing around the planet they'll make contact with their base at Pluto!"

“Sir one minute to intercept!”

At this point there were no options Lance just had to hope that they could destroy the cruiser before it could send information back to base.

“Launch alert fighters, as soon as they drop out of warp, weapons free, copy to _Fuji_ ” Lance barked.

He watched on the screens above the map table as fighters swarmed out both hangars of the _Kilimanjaro_ behind him he could hear the communications tech repeating the order to the _Fuji._ When the radar tech began counting down from ten, Lance gripped the table tightly. The entire plan hinged on the next minute.

As soon as the cruiser appeared before them, a mass barrage of shells and ship to ship missiles rocketed from the two garrison ships, all of which struck with deadly accuracy. The cruiser returned fire, and the impact rocked _Kilimanjaro_. Lance was nearly knocked off his feet.

“Our armor took the brunt of that one but I don’t think we could do much more” Shouted Reams, picking herself back up from where she fell.

“Focus fire on the center of that cruiser, the narrow bit! That’s the weak point” Lance screamed.

Turning to look at the screens hanging above him, Lance could see Neptune getting closer and closer. The ship was picking up speed, and had about twenty seconds until it whipped around the ice giant. It was now or never if they wanted to destroy this Galra cruiser.

“Ten seconds to gravity assist!”

A shell pounded the galra cruiser at full force, explosions rocked the upper hull.

“Five!”

A missile ship to ship struck the Ion cannon, blasting it clean off the warship.

“Four!”

More shells struck the engines of the cruiser, in a failed attempt to disable it’s quintessence reactor

“Three!”

A Massive explosion ripped the cruiser in half at the midsection.

“Two!”

A large blast marked the end on the lone Galra ship, pieces of it flying in all directions, glittering violet in the distant sun's light.

“One!”

 _Kilimanjaro_ rocketed around the planet, vibrating violently. Lance looked to see Ream’s coffee spilling over the sides of it’s mug, and watched pencils fall from the central map table. As quickly as the shaking started, it ended. For just a second, everyone looked at each other as if to double check they were still alive. In the screen, the blue ice giant was rapidly growing distant.

“Did we detect any signals leaving that cruiser before it blew?” Lance said, awaiting an answer with baited breath.

“One second sir… no, no signals.”

Cheers erupted across the C.I.C. as the news broke. Lance watched his officers hug each other, but all he could do is release the breath he held. The tension that he had built up finally flowed from him, as if a dam had been broken down. The mission was still on. Lance still had a chance to make a real difference in this war.

"Recover alert fighters and maintain course to Pluto. Copy to  _Fuji_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wanted to address this real fast:  
> I had a friend confused about me referring to Neptune as an Ice Giant. Most people aren't actually aware of this, but on basic composition, Neptune and Uranus are different from Jupiter and Saturn. Unlike Jupiter and Saturn, which are made mostly of Hydrogen and Helium, which is condensed into a liquid state as you go down, Uranus and Neptune are composed of heavier elements like carbon, and oxygen, which are frozen in an extremely dense "slush-like" form. Therefore, they have the distinct classification: "Ice Giant".


	10. Pluto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle of Pluto commences, and Lance makes a big discovery.

On screen, Lance could see two dots, A larger one, a vibrant red and pink, the smaller one, a dull grey. This was Pluto and its largest moon Charon. Lance hadn’t been here since the blue lion rocketed past Kerberos over a year ago. Despite that brief encounter, it in some strange sense felt familiar.

“Sir, the _Fuji_ is standing by they’re waiting on your word” Reams shouted down from the upper balcony.

“Give them the go ahead, Helm full throttle”

With violent blast, both dreadnoughts shot forward. The little dot that was Pluto was suddenly becoming much larger.

“Sir I mean no disrespect, but how sure are you this is going to work?!” The young pilot yelled over the violent shaking of the engines.

“You know!” Lance began “A wise Altean once told me: Honestly this is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen or heard of, but since we’re all probably going to die anyways, what the heck let's give it a shot!” Lance let out a laugh as his pilot frowned.

A small speck came into view, and was getting closer. It was Kerberos.

“Tell the _Fuji_ to open fire!” Lance ordered.

Within an instant dozens of shells were raining down towards Kerberos. Just as the massive explosions engulfed a large portion of the Moon’s southern hemisphere, _Kilimanjaro_ rocketed past.

“Sir the Galra have taken the bait, there are two battle cruisers on an intercept course but they don’t see us! _Fuji_ they’ve used the gravity of Kerberos to slingshot back out of the system and their drawing ths ships away!” Shouted one of the officers on the balcony. Just then the comms crackled to life:

“Anderson to _Kilimanjaro:_ I don’t fucking believe it McClain this stupid crazy fuckin’ plan of yours worked! Go complete the mission. We’ll set a course to rendevouz with the fleet at Gagarin Installation. Good luck”.

Before Lance could respond the channel was closed. The ship cautiously proceeded to Charon.

\-----------------------------------------

Lance entered the hangar in that green armor that was left for him in his locker. He moved to the lead shuttle with a rifle strapped to his back. Major Palmer, officer in command of _Kilimanjaro’s_ marines greeted him at the hatch. Palmer was an older gentleman, with snow white hair, and a thick mustache to boot. As if bred to fit a stereotype, he also spoke with a thick London accent.

“Sir, glad you’ll be joining us, after all you can’t just work out in the mornings and not expect to join us in a fight!”

“Careful Palmer, my presence didn’t turn out for the last bit of marines I went to the surface with!” Lance replied. He stopped, however, and took a second to think back on what he just said. Darker humor had never been his thing, and in all honesty, he was surprised at himself. Be it the responsibility, the war, or both, he was changing as a person.

“So uh, just wondering but, where's the nuke?” Lance asked

“Behind you sir!”

Lance turned around to see four marines carry what looked like a large upside down pear. It was about as big as a smart car, and pulsed menacingly. They grabbed it by a handrail placed along it’s upper half, and were clearly struggling.

“Don’t worry sir, Pluto is extremely low gravity, they shouldn’t have much trouble when we’re on the ground” Palmer explained. "Not to mention its gonna put a hole in the ground as big as Rhode Island!"

Lance stepped into the shuttle, again thinking back to the joke he made earlier. This shuttle was just like the one he road to Earth,  small, and jam packed full of armor clad marines, even the atmosphere of laughter was the same. The shuttle lurched as it got airborne, and Lance grabbed onto the rail above him. He radioed the C.I.C. to let them know they were on the move.

“Sir, we’re reading all three shuttles are clear of the hangar” Reams responded almost immediately.

“Good, you have the conn until I get back, take care of my ship” Lance replied.

“Yes sir, see you when you get back. Good hunting!”

Lance turned his attention to the squad of marines before him. They quieted down, nudging each other to be quiet, and directed their attention to their commander.

“Listen up marines!” he said

They all responded with a vibrant “Yes sir!”

“No no no no! Cut that sir crap. Until we’re out of the hot zone I’m just one of you guys, now listen up: This is no simple in and out mission. Not only are we lugging a big fucking bomb the entire way with us, but while we’re in there, we need to download as much data as possible, that means troop movements, fleet rosters etcetera!

Suddenly the shuttle rocked, causing Lance to fall into a wall.

“I swear if I get shot down again!” he remarked to himself, drawing laughter from the marines closest to him.

“Sir I’ve got the base in sight but their mounted Ion cannons are giving us hell!” shouted the pilot “I’ve gotta put us down on the nearby ridge”

“Do it!” Lance shouted back.

As the shuttle approached the ground Lance moved to the door and forced it open. The open hatch revealed a world of gunfire and explosions. Fireballs kicked massive chunks of rock and dust into the sky, rocking the shuttle as it slowed to land. The base was maybe 200 meters away, and Lance took a few pot shots at it before checking his oxygen supply and jumping to the cold icy ground. As soon as he did the marines followed, and as the second and third shuttle landed, the group took up positions behind cover along the ridge.

Lance saw two marines moving the nuke behind a rock. Thanks to Pluto’s light gravity and thin atmosphere, it was much easier than it was aboard _Kilimanjaro,_ just as Palmer said it would.

A laser bolt narrowly missing Lance’s head made him reconsider their position. Looking down the ridge, he could sock rock debris that was created by the base’s rapid construction. He tapped Palmer on the shoulder and pointed to it. When Palmer nodded back, they both stood up. 

While the squad provided covering fire, Lance, Palmer, and about 15 marines made their way down the ridge, along with the nuke. Taking cover behind the aforementioned debris, Lance took in his new surroundings. They were much closer to the base now, and Lance could see an airlock directly ahead, under guard by two sentries.

“Palmer, explosive launcher, take out those sentries and open that door!” He radioed

Palmer repeated the order, and two marines sprung up immediately. With the launchers mounted on their shoulders, they took aim and fired. The first rocket blasted the ground between the sentries, taking both out. The second rocket hit the airlock door dead center, forcing it open.

Under the covering fire of the marines back on the ridge, Lance lead his team into the opening. As soon as they were in, a particle barrier sealed the hole, and restored atmosphere to the room. Taking note that the air was breathable again, Lance flipped his helmet visor up, and several marines did the same.

The interior of this base looked exactly like the one Lance had been in with Pidge two weeks ago. The same purple walls and purple lights adorned the hallway. The only discernible difference being the lack of scorch marks from battles prior. That said, just because it was familiar, didn't mean it was comfortable. Together, they bounded forward, clinging to the cover of walls and pillars. As they moved, their gear rustled, and the rifles clicked. Each movement brought new surroundings, and with it, a renewed tenseness. Sweat dripped down Lance's forehead, and he wasn't the only one. After all, until today, himself, the other Voltron paladins, Sam, and Matt, had been the only Humans to even lay eyes on an alien environment. For everyone else, this was a first, and it showed. At every stop, the men turned to their neighbor, offering whispers of encouragement. It honestly didn't make all that much of a difference, but it was something after all.   

The team made their way down the halls. At a four way intersection, they ambushed a contingent of guards, eliminating them before they even knew what happened. As the team took up defensive positions, Lance couldn’t help but stare at the bodies on the floor, bleeding a deep purple onto an even more violet floor. The Lance before all of this would have disarmed them, tied them up somewhere. However, that was before the invasion, before what he saw in Boston, before he had ever known just what real war is like. As they prepared to move on, he couldn’t help but wish he had maintained his innocence. Some wishes weren't meant to come true.

\-----------------------------------------

Arriving at a gigantic door at the center of the base, they all knew where they were: the control room. As Palmer planted a small explosive on the door, Lance looked to the rest of the marines, all who nodded in affirmation. When Lance nodded to palmer, the door blew. Bolting into the room, the team fired wildly, hoping that if they couldn’t hit the Galra, they could at least keep them pinned down. When the shooting subsided, they moved to the center of the room.

The room itself was immense. Large cables connected to the central computer hung down from the ceiling, and met in a massive terminal at the far end of the room. Smaller consoles lined the side walls, and across every one, data flowed faster than anyone could read it. Prior to their entry, it had been pristine, but now the walls and floors were marred with scorches and still smoking bullet holes. The door itself was blown across the room to the other side, along with chunks of the wall it once stood on.

Lance was suddenly startled by a scream of intense pain. He turned to see Palmer on the ground, shot in the leg by the mortally wounded commander of the base. As the commander redirected his blaster to the stunned leader, one of the marines shot the injured Galra dead center of the chest, ending his life. Lance didn't care to stare at the bleeding corpse too long, as even after all this, the sight still made him somewhat sick.

A medic quickly rushed over to Palmer, who was holding his leg. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a first aid kid adorned with the trademark red cross. He didn't even hesitate to start working on the wounded Major.

“I can bandage it” he said, not even looking up. “But he's going to need medical attention when we get back to the ship”. Lance nodded before turning to the marines.

“Set up the nuke!” he said, as he moved to the grand consol at the far side of the room. He remembered watching pidge do it so many times. So often in fact, that he had learned how to copy data from a Galra console just by watching her. He plugged the computer he’d been carrying on his back into a small port just below the main interface. Immediately, thousands of files translated into English thanks to Pidge’s extraordinary program she had given her father to take back to Earth.

Lance glanced the files as they went by. Some listed key military targets on Earth and in the rest of the Sol system. Others were exact logs of every ship in the invasion force. All in all, everything looked pretty standard for a Galra computer… that is until he came across a file about something called “Operation Kuron”. At first lance didn't think much of it... but for some reason, the name called to him. He scrolled back up to the mystery file. When Lance opened it, he was dumbfounded by what he saw:

 

“ _Takashi Shirogane is in our custody. He is to be cloned…”_

 

Lance let out a gasp and shut the laptop.  _Not feeling like myself._ Lance knew something was off but... this was not what he had been expecting. The next file he looked at contained the transponder code for that super ship that had come to Jupiter and stolen the black lion. When he whistled, everyone in the room turned their attention to him.

“This data just became the most important thing we have, we need to get it out of here now! Is the bomb ready?” he asked

“Good to blow, we rigged it on a timer, 20 minutes” One of the marines responded.

“Alright then we need to move I don’t know about you but I don't want to be here when it goes… let's get out of here!

\-----------------------------------------

Outside the fighting had mostly died down. When Lance returned, individual squad leaders were assessing casualties and moving the wounded back to the shuttles. When they saw Lance and company in a dead sprint towards them, they knew exactly what it meant.

“Let's go everyone time to pack it up!”

Once everyone was aboard, the shuttles blasted off the surface. Looking down at the timer on his wrist, Lance could see they had about five minutes to get out of the blast radius. As the think pink atmosphere turned to black, Lance knew they had entered space. However, before he could let a wave of relief wash over him, his piloted screamed:

“Two galra battlecruisers 12 o’clock!”

Lance made his way into the cockpit and was greeted by the menacing sight of the two ships. They had lost track of the _Fuji_ and were clearly responding to the numerous distress signals they probably got from home base. As the ion cannons began to glow that same menacing purple that was the very essence of impending death by Galra, Lance closed his eyes. If this was the way he was going to die, so be it.

He opened them when he heard his pilot mutter a soft “woah”. Ship to ship missiles whizzed past them. He could see shells careening into the battlecruisers, tearing them apart. In the distance, he could see _Kilimanjaro_ every gun flashing vibrantly as it flung shells at the Galran warships.

“Looks like you guys needed a hand!” Reams triumphantly shouted into the comms.

Before Lance could even thank her, he witnessed a bright flash from Pluto. The nuke had gone off, and his mission was a success.

“Reams, get me the communications team, I have to make an important... what should I call it.... Intergalactic business call?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready guys, we're gonna shift gears back to the paladins for a bit after this.


	11. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance shares his findings with team Voltron, and shares the truth with Keith.

Here Keith was once again, in the castle’s command room. It had been a week since Allura and Coran caught him, but that still didn’t stop from sneaking in each night while everyone slept. Although considering there were absolutely no leads to go on, he spent his time staring at the Milky Way in the distance.

Suddenly he heard a beeping from Coran’s station at the front of the room, and on further inspection noted a red light blinking. Keith knew this was a communication from somewhere, and although Coran and Allura usually answer these he didn’t want to wake them. _Besides it’s probably just Kolivan or Lotor… hell maybe it’s even-_ _  
_ “L-Lance?”

Keith looked over every feature of the stunned former paladin. He immediately noticed the grey Garrison uniform, but it was the smaller details that surprised him. He could see a new small scar just above Lance’s right eyebrow. He also noticed the setting behind Lance, the C.I.C. of a Garrison warship, not unlike the _Everest_.

“Lance are you… in command of a ship right now?” Keith said

“Uh… yeah, you know… a lot’s happened in these last two weeks… but it’s really good to see you Keith” Lance finally spoke, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck

Keith felt an intense warmth at that last comment, and desperately tried to hide it.

“Well… right um, do you need me to wake the others is this important?” He asked, thumb pointed over his shoulder.

“Oh RIGHT! Yeah buddy, this is really, really important I’m gonna need everyone here”

Keith fiddled with a few buttons on the panel in front of him. He eventually activated the castles internal pager system, and used it to summon everyone.

“It's going to be a few minutes before they all get here so… what have you been up to?” Keith started, trying to avoid eye contact through the screen.

Lance looked to the ground before starting.

“I won’t bullshit you Keith, it’s pretty bad here. Right after you guys left, I went to Earth. There’s a resistance but honestly keith, they won’t hold much longer. I’m out here at Pluto, and we just nuked a galra base into oblivion, but, to date that’s really been our only victory”

Keith could hear the hopeless tone in Lance’s voice. All he wanted to do was make it feel better, but he didn’t know what to say.

“What about your family?”

“Dead probably… all of them. The Galra annihilated Cuba and the Caribbean in the first hour ”

 _Shit_ _nice going Keith,_ he thought to himself. The red paladin looked back to the screen, but to his surprise, Lance’s expression remained neutral and unchanged.  Had Lance, the most family oriented of them all gone numb to their loss? Had he just bottled his emotions up? Just how bad was the situation in Sol? 

“Lance I’m so sorry”

“It’s okay Keith, I’m just glad you’re okay at least”

Before Keith could comprehend what was just said, a door wooshed open behind him.

“Keith what the hell are you doing waking us up this late at- is that Lance?” Pidge rubbed her eyes as if to double check what she was seeing.

Hunk stumbled in behind her. “Oh my god Lance!”

Coran and Allura were the last to join and after saying their greetings, Lance donned a smile.

“So it’s good to see you guys again” he began. “Don’t worry we’re holding our own here, which reminds me, Pidge, your dad is doing great, or well as great as he can be. I haven’t heard from either your mom, or Hunk’s family yet, but I promise I’ll keep looking, after all there's hope!”

This Lance seemed much more familiar to Keith. Happy, full of smiles, a ray of hope for the team. Then it hit him: _He’s bullshitting. He said he wouldn’t bullshit me, but he didn’t say anything about them._

Suddenly Lance’s expression became a little more serious:

“But, I didn’t call to catch you all up. We found something here, and I think you’re going to want to take a look. Before we destroyed the Galra supply base on Pluto, we took a vast majority of their files. We’ve got fleet movements, rosters… and then there's this”

Lance pushed a few buttons on his side, and a holscreen opened on the bridge of the castle.

“Operation Kuron, what the quiznack is that supposed to be?” Asked Coran as he rubbed his fingers through his moustache in thought.

“That, is who we’ve been dealing with instead of Shiro all this time. The Galra have our Shiro! They’ve been planning this since we wormholed Zarkon to the middle of nowhere and defeated him. They really fooled us” Lance replied.

“So… sure now we know but how does any of this help us?” Said Pidge

“There's more, in these files is the current location of Haggar’s ship… you know that massive red command dreadnought thing that showed up at Jupiter? They’re hiding in the Andromeda Galaxy, which… since your in the Triangulum Galaxy…”

“...They’re right next door” Keith finished.

“Bingo, samurai” Lance said with a smile. “I’d bet money they still have the black lion, and honestly, the _real_ Shiro probably is there too”

“Well wait, Lance if you blew up the Galra base, couldn't they have moved the dreadnought since they might know you have this information?” Hunk asked

“Hunk this data has that ships specific signature, I can have Matt plug it into the Galra finder, and we can track it in nearly real time” Pidge answered

“Good work paladins. If we want to save Earth we need the black lion back” Allura was using her diplomatic voice. When she finished, Lance chimed in:

“She’s right we can try to hold the line, but until we have Voltron we’re really not going to make any progress”

Soon, Pidge and Hunk bid their goodbyes, and went to drag Matt out of bed and work on the Galra finder. Allura and Coran were not far behind, and it was just Keith once more, all alone with Lance.

“So… since you were able to make this call… does that mean this line will stay open? Can I call you and talk every now and again?” Keith asked hopefully.

“Unfortunately no… the Galra jamming is still in effect. I was only able to open this channel because of how close we are to the edge of the system but, as soon as I hang up here we’re flying back to Earth’s moon to mount a defense of our last surface installation” Lance said, the frown and general sad demeanor from before had returned.

“I-uh well Lance-”

“Keith we can’t hold out much longer. The victory at Pluto will buy us time, but at best, we’ve got a month until we’re overwhelmed. Keith, I’m really, really counting on you here. We all are”

“Lance there's something I need to tell you”

Keith was going to do it, then and there. He was going to tell Lance how he felt, how much he missed his soft blue eyes and tanned flawless skin. How his voice and laugh lit up Keith’s world and that he never wanted to live without it. He wanted to tell Lance that he cared deeply about him, that he _loved_ him. However, in the last minute… he couldn’t.

“I… promise we’ll get Voltron, just please Lance, be careful”

The soft smile Lance gave was enough to melt Keith’s heart.

“I will Keith, thanks”

And just like that the communication ended. Keith sat down on the floor and lowered his head into his hands. _Will we get Voltron in time?_ He instantly regretted not telling Lance how he felt. He could tell Lance to be careful all he wants, but Lance would give his life to save literally anyone. He was just selfless like that. Perhaps it’s part of why Keith loved him so much. Still, Keith couldn’t shake the concern that he would never see Lance again. The very thought sent chills through his spine.

Things were so much easier for Keith when it was just him, alone in that shack in Arizona. He thought that would never change, but then he found his mother, found a family in his team, and fell in love with an obnoxious boy in blue. Despite the pain having people to care for could cause, now Keith was sure he wouldn’t ever want to be alone again.

He turned his gaze to the Andromeda Galaxy, which was massive in the sky, since it wasn’t all that far from Triangulum. Somewhere in that sea of trillions of stars was the key to Voltron. The key to saving Earth. The key to saving Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brace yourselves, the next chapter is going to have one hell of a fight.


	12. Andromeda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The paladins of Voltron finally catch up to the black lion, but what does Haggar's disabled command ship hold in store?

Lance may have given the team the key to finding the black lion, but it still took the team more than two weeks to pinpoint the command ship. It was jumping randomly around the Andromeda galaxy, every half hour. The team had considered just simply going for it, breaking in and hoping for the best. However, despite how much Keith insisted that Lance and the Garrison were running out of time, the rest of the team agreed: They were about to enter haggar’s lair… if someone went wrong, if they wound up down another paladin, then Earth would never get the help it needed.

So, they waited. All the while going about their normal life in the castle. Pidge, Hunk, and Matt worked  on fine tuning the green lion’s cloak. Meanwhile, Coran and Allura, when not busy tracking Haggar’s vessel, sat together in the lounge and watched old Altean movies. Keith, being the anti social creature that he was, spent his time on the training deck, sparing with the gladiator droids.

As his sword made contact with the head of the last droid, the deck announced that level 40 had been completed. Sore and drenched in sweat, Keith decided now would be as good a time as ever to take a break. He took a seat against the wall and sipped on a water pouch, cool liquid soothing his dry throat.

No longer focused on training, his thoughts drifted to Lance, as they had frequently since their last contact. Lance hadn’t called back, of course. Keith knew he wouldn’t; the Galra jamming was still active, yet he held out hope. He couldn’t escape the thought that maybe something happened. He knew Lance was mounting a defense at the moon but, that’s all Keith knew. The lack of contact fed into his guilt over not telling Lance just how he felt.

Keith jumped off the wall when he heard the castle’s alarm sound. He sprinted down the hallways ready to face some sort of attack, but he started to figure out what was going on as he approached.

“So it just stopped jumping?” Pidge echoed down the hallway

“Yeah Allura says it’s been at a standstill for two hours now!” Hunk shouted back

Stepping onto the bridge out of breath, Keith looked up from his painting to see Allura, Coran, and Matt discussing things over a holographic projection of the Andromeda galaxy.

“So it's not jumping anymore?” Keith managed in between breaths.

“No it just sort of… stopped. I don’t know what's happened but it’s almost as if the ship lost power” Matt explained, scratching his head.

“Well if we needed an opportunity to check it out, I suppose now would be the time, we’ll make the preparations to wormhole. Keith, get Pidge and Hunk to their lions, and once we’re through the wormhole, I’ll catch up to you” Allura ordered.

\-----------------------------------------

Matt was right about one thing, it was as if the command ship had lost power. The four lions coasted gently through the nebula, through the colorful red and orange gas clouds until they came upon the hulking dreadnought, adrift in space. The red lights emanating from all the windows were also out, indicating some sort of critical system failure.

“Does this ring of trap to anyone else?” Asked Hunk nervously through the comms.

“Yeah buddy I’m inclined to agree, Pidge can you scan the ship for life signs?” Keith added.

“Well… I’ve got one Altean, and four unknowns…” Pidge began

“Haggar and the druids” Allura chimed in, voice tense.

“Yeah well here's where it gets interesting, I’ve got not one, but _two_ Human lifesigns, both very far apart from each other” Pidge finished

The lions came upon a hangar, and in it, they could see the black lion, with it’s particle barrier raised. Upon landing, they could see that all the sentries assigned to guard it had been deactivated, probably by whatever shut down the ship.

“Okay this is officially really freaky” Hunk whispered over comms.

“Yeah I’m not really feeling this either” Agreed Pidge.

Suddenly the comms crackled to life:

“Hello, is anyone there?” it was Shiro.

“Shiro! Where are you? Are you okay? We’re onboard the ship, give us your location, we’ll come to you” Keith responded, stepping down from his Lion

“Oh Keith! Man am I glad to hear you, I’ve been here for months, I’m in some kind of storage room? I don’t know. I was in a cell but all the power went out. I was trying to work my way to an escape pod but I can’t find anything”

“Okay Shiro sit tight we’re on our way” Keith pressed the mute button on the side of his helmet. “We can’t rule out that one of these Human lifesigns is probably the clone, Allura, you come with me to whoever this is, Pidge and Hunk, follow the scanner to the second life sign”

The whole team nodded in agreement.

\-----------------------------------------

Pidge and Hunk proceeded down one of the many extremely dark hallways. Turning a corner, they came across a hallway with numerous disabled sentries.

“There’s no damage” Pidge said. “It’s like they just shut down”

“I don’t like that, it's like we’ve walked into a big ol’ trap” Replied Hunk, bayard pointed forward.

As the two came to the end of the hallway, they came across an elevator.  Pidge used her bayard to separate and force open the doors. They were greeted by an extremely dark elevator shaft, with purple emergency lighting casting an ominous glow down into the deep below.

“We need to go down three floors, activate your jetpack and follow me” Pidge said, as she jumped into the shaft.

“Pidge, I really don't like that” Hunk said, sweating. “Pidge?”

The yellow paladin looked one last time into the shaft, tugging at his collar nervously before taking the leap of faith. Hunk’s jetpack stabilized him almost immediately, and he descended down to Pidge, who was in the process of cutting open the door they needed to get through.

“Hunk I've got the lock cut, help me force it open” she said.

Together the two paladins jammed their fingers in between the doors and pulled. Eventually the doors slid open, revealing a hallway of prison cells. It looked just like any galra prison, except this one had tubes covered in frost running parallel along the ceiling as far as the eye could see.

Forcing open one of the doors, Hunk could see what looked like a Galra-fied version of the Altean cryo pod. Suddenly he realized: This wasn't just any type of prison, it was some sort of cryogenic storage facility, probably for victims of druid experiments.

“Pidge I really don’t like this!” he said.

“I know, me either, but we’re close, he's just down at the end of the hall” she replied.

Together they moved along the hallway quietly. There were more downed sentries here, likely the guards of the prison. But why guard an empty prison? Unless… there was one very important prisoner.

“Comeon, we’re here” Pidge stated as they arrived at the very last door in the hallway.

When the door opened, hunk caught a glimpse of the massive pod at the center of the room. It still had power, as the displays and instruments were all still active, and giving off information like heart rate, temperature etc. Hunk Approached the pod, and wiped the first off the glass. When he revealed a black Voltron emblem, he wiped harder, until he recognized the face: _Shiro_.

“Oh my god Pidge it’s him, quickly get him out of there!”

Pidge brought out her laptop and plugged it into the computer at the base of the pod. After running a translation program, she was able to override the pod’s internal programming, and initiate a thaw protocol. Hunk caught shiro as he fell forward.

“Hunk… Pidge? Where am I? Where’s Z-zarkon?” He stammered, unable to open his eyes.

“Shiro, what do you remember last?” Hunk asked, quickly realizing what was going on.

“We were in battle with Zarkon, the black lion, was telling me to use my bayard when I retrieve it… some sort of power activated? I don’t remember it's all so foggy”

“Pidge this one’s our Shiro, we have to warn Keith and Allura!”

\-----------------------------------------

Keith and Allura walked the halls in an alert silence. They too had come across numerous disable sentries. At this point, they were certain they were walking right into a trap.

The pair came up to a door, and when Keith looked down to his sensor, which indicated they were right next to their target, he shot Allura a look. In response, she took a deep breath and nodded. Both paladins readied their bayards, and Keith forced open the door.

The room was large and empty, save for a few screens and a chair at the center of the room, facing away from them. A dark figure sat in the chair.

“I knew you guys would find me eventually” The man spoke.

The chair spun around revealing a pair of piercing yellow eyes, without irises or pupils. He stood, and stepped into the light from the open door. _Kuron._ He was dressed in red Galra commander’s armor, and held a button in his “Human” hand. At this point, the comms crackled to life it was Hunk.

“GUYS! We have Shiro, the one you’re going after is Kuron!”

Keith wanted to laugh at the poor timing, but he was too focused on the clone before him. Kuron’s gaze pierced the air like daggers.

“We know, get him to the black lion, we’ll meet you soon” Keith responded.

“So… you’ve found my… parent? Twin? Whatever you consider it, you’ve got him back now, good on you” Kuron grinned, and held the button before him. “Shame you won’t make it out of here alive with him”

When Kuron pushed the button, all the lights in the room activated. Keith could hear the sentries in the hallway whirring to life. Kuron had just reactivated the ship’s quintessence reactor. With a small chuckle, the clone looked at the controller in his hand, before closing his fist and crushing it, causing sparks to fly in all directions. Looking back to the two stunned paladins, he activated his arm, which glowed a menacing violet.

“Allura, go keep the sentries at bay, I’ll get back to the hangar, I promise!” Keith shouted.

Allura only nodded in response, but did as she was told. Keith listened to her footsteps get further before he raised his sword to challenge Kuron.

Accepting the challenge, Kuron scoffed and shot forward. Keith raised his sword to block the impact, but when he did, he slid back several feet. Stunned by the display of force, Keith failed to block the punch that hit him dead center in the gut, forcing him onto the floor on his back.

“A shame the blue one isn’t here to see this” Kuron boasted, raising his hand into the air above Keith. Keith rolled to his left and dodged, just as Kuron brought it down into the floor, leaving a sharp divot in the metal where Keith once was. Keith was back on his feet in an instant sword raised to his opponent.

“Although, our fleet probably killed him along with the rest of your pathetic species!”

That put Keith over the edge, letting out a shout as he sprinted forward, he put his blade forward mid dash. However, rather than skewer Kuron like he had hope, the clone raised his robotic arm, and effortlessly slapped Keith with such force, that the red paladin went airborne, into the hallway. Realizing he was outmatched, Keith collected himself, and broke out into a run towards the hangar.  

\-----------------------------------------

The rest of the team held off sentries in the hangar. Luckily for them, Black had accepted the real Shiro’s return, and lowered her particle barrier. Shiro maintained he was alright enough to fly back to the castle.

Allura and Hunk kept a nervous lookout for Keith who had yet to return. Hunk blasted sentry after sentry, and just as he was about to ask Allura if they should go back and find Keith, a door to the left side of the hangar exploded. Much to the surprise of the Paladins, Keith came tumbling through.

Picking himself up off the ground, he shouted: “Guys some help please!”

Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro ran past him to hold off Kuron, while Allura rushed back to Keith’s aid.

“Keith! Are you okay? Your face is bleeding!” She said

“Yeah I’m fine, but Kuron is way more dangerous than we could have imagined!” Keith replied, out of breath.

As he said that, Pidge shot through the air past them, using her bayard’s grappling ability to save herself just before she slammed into a wall. Looking back to where pidge had come from, Keith could see Hunk blasting shots off at Kuron, who deflected them with his hand as effortlessly as waving. We walked right up to Hunk, and knocked the yellow paladin to his feet. As the clone raised his glowing arm to strike again, Shiro blocked it with his Galra arm, the part where they made contact glowing red hot.

“Don’t you touch him you clone son of a bitch!” Shiro shouted.

While the two traded blows, Keith helped hunk to his feet, and assisted him back to the yellow lion. Behind him, Pidge had gotten back up, and was climbing back to the green lion.

“Haggar is going to wipe your planet from our star maps!” the clone shouted striking Shiro repeatedly.

Shiro was doing his best to counter, but he was exhausted, and fresh from cryostasis. With a sweeping kick to his legs, Shiro came tumbling down. The clone stood menacingly above him, ready to make the kill. Shiro couldn’t move, his body wouldn’t let him. He could only close his eyes and accept the fate before him. However, the end never came. Shiro cautiously opened one eye.

Kuron’s jaw was dropped, and crimson-red Human blood was trickling from to corner of his mouth. It took shiro a second to recognize the red blade impaled through the clone’s stomach. Those yellow eyes faded, and for just a second, they were human once more. He let out a small smile, before sliding off Keith’s blade onto the floor.

Keith held out a steady hand to a stunned Shiro, who carefully accepted it. Without a word, they both rushed back to their Lions.

As Keith got Red into the air, he could see Haggar and her Druid entourage enter the room. Not willing to stay and find out what they had in store for the fleeing Paladins, he took off, watching as the Galra dreadnought got smaller and smaller behind him.

The flight back to the castle was long and silent. Everyone was sort of waiting for someone else to start the conversation. Yet, at the same time, no one really wanted to talk about what had happened back there.

Finally, when they landed in their individual hangars, Shiro spoke:

“Okay I have a lot of questions. First of all: how long have I been gone? How long did you think that clone was me? Why were they talking about Earth? And… where's Lance?”

Keith was stepping off Red when Shiro asked those questions. He waited to see if anyone else would answer. No one did, but he was almost certain he could hear Hunk nervously scratch his head. It quickly became apparent that everyone was waiting for the red paladin to say something. 

“Shiro you’ve… a lot has happened since our battle with Zarkon. Meet me in the command room. I’ll get you caught up”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow okay. Kuron is in fact very dead, and such is the first main character death in this fic. The next few chapters will begin the resolution of the plot lines, so brace yourselves guys, we're coming close to the end!


	13. The Brink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is trapped at the Gagarin Installation on the moon. Is Humanity's time up?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although shorter, I've had this chapter plotted for a very long time. I hope you like it!
> 
> There's been a significant time skip (three weeks) since the last chapter

Lance stumbled down the dark hallway of Gagarin Installation alone, with nothing but a service pistol to defend himself. Separated from Commander Holt in some of the intense fighting; Lance had been through hell. He was still in his grey dress uniform, although now the chest was stained in blood, the result of failed first aid to a dying marine. Coming to rest against a wall, he brought two fingers to his forehead feeling the laceration that was now oozing freely, warm red blood dripping down his left cheek. Lance wiped it off on the wall, leaving a crimson streak over the V in “Level 15”.

It had now been three weeks since the video call with team Voltron. Once _Kilimanjaro_ made it back to the moon two weeks ago, they had constantly been on the defensive. While the destruction of the supply base limited the amount of ships the Galra could commit to the Sol System in general, it didn't stop them from constantly throwing fleets of twenty, thirty, sometimes forty battlecruisers at the massive base. This time, they had forced the six Garrison ships out of orbit, and disabled the surface-to-air railgun defenses. As an explosion rocked the base violently, and dust fell gently to the floor, Lance couldn't help but consider that this would be the end. _Maybe Humanity's time is up?_

As Lance came to an corner where the hallway turned to the left, he found six bodies. Two were Galra foot soldiers, the other four were Garrison marines. The sight made the exhausted commander tense, partially due to the overall horror of the scene, but mostly due to the possibility of more Galra being just around that corner. He looked down to his weapon, took a deep breath, and counted to three.

Sure enough he was right, and as he came around the corner, gun drawn, two Galra foot soldiers saw him. Lance fired into the first one, killing the soldier almost instantly, but before he could fire on the second one, a laser pulse ripped through his arm. He winced in pain, and fired three shots wildly. The first two missed, but third was right on target. The Galra collapsed to the ground next to his partner. Slowly, a deep purple blood drained from the now gasping alien. Lance couldn't help but watch as the dying soldier reached toward the ceiling, as if grasping at life itself, before it's arm fell back to the floor, and the hitched breathing stopped all together. The red paladin Lance from a month and a half ago would have been traumatized by what he saw, but Garrison Commander Lance, having spent months watching his own species get wiped out at the hands of these  _monsters,_ didn't honestly care all that much.

Lance leaned against the wall, and let himself slide to the ground with a thud. He could feel the searing pain in his arm. Finally he brought himself to look. The wound was a little less than an inch across, but it was bleeding, profusely. The outer skin layers and grey fabric of the uniform surrounding it were scorched an unforgiving black. It wasn’t lethal, but it still hurt.

He staggered back to his feet, before struggling to reload his pistol with one hand. He fumbled with the weapon, dropping the new magazine more than once. He tried to use his injured arm to rack the slide of the pistol, but merely moving it caused him to cry in pain, and bite his lip as warm crimson blood dripped between his fingers. Unable to use his left arm, he held the now loaded weapon at his right hip, at this point counting more on luck than his aim. He was close enough to the hangar now that maybe he wouldn’t need it anymore anyways.

Upon coming to another corner in the hallway, this one turning to the right, Lance could see a bright white light. It was too bright to be the emergency lighting, so it had to be a window. He staggered up to it, and studied the situation. Far away, just above the lunar horizon, was a crescent Earth; it’s night side still aglow with great orange blazes, just as it was over a month ago. The sky was solid back, no stars, thanks to light form the sun over-shining them. Above him, he could see three Galra battlecruisers hovering just above the base, firing on marines that had dug trenches into the Lunar soil. Each shot from the cruiser kicked up more dust, which settled gently across the landscape. It was only a matter of time before they redirected their fire on the Gagarin Installation itself. The violent symphony of death was itself, silent, as sound didn't travel through the moon's airless surface, or the vacuum of space. _If this truly is the garrison's last stand, at least we go out with a bang._

Suddenly an explosion marred one of the battlecruisers in the sky. Lance watched, awestruck, as the flaming wreck came careening into the Moon’s surface, ejecting boulders and dust into the sky, which eclipsed the sun and darkened the landscape. The shot had come from above, and Lance pressed his face to the glass to try and glimpse what brought it down. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing: Rebel ships, hundreds of them, followed by Galra ships with Lotor’s markings and… _Voltron._  The massive mechanical warrior skirted low over the battlefield, drawing cheers from the entrenched marines who raised their rifles in celebration. Not far behind it, the castle made a low pass over Gagarin Installation, before angling upwards and rocketing back into space. A wave of relief washed over him, as the garrison, and by extension humanity wasn't finished... not today.

\-----------------------------------------

Lance finally stumbled into the installation’s main hangar. It was absolutely massive, Voltron could probably fit in there fully assembled. However, what surprised Lance wasn’t that it was so big, but that it was so big and full of olive drab military cots… occupied cots. The hangar had become a makeshift hospital, hundreds if not thousands of sick and wounded, civilians and soldiers alike. The joy Lance had just felt was quickly overshadowed by the dread the sight brought on, or at least it was only sight at first. the smell caught up to him next, smells of vomit, blood... decay. Then the sound, screams in agony, crying, the horrible crying... 

“Lance!”

Commander Holt ran up to him, dressed in full armor, clearly back from the fight.

“My god look at you, are you okay?” he asked

“Yeah I’m okay I’ll live, but, what about all these people?” Lance responded.

Holt took a worried and sad look around the hangar. With every scream or cry in agony, the older man winced. He turned back to Lance with a look of determination in his eyes.

“We’ll do what we can for them… but now that Voltron is here, they aren’t all going to die, and that’s something to be happy about” he said, resting a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Now go find one of the volunteer nurses and get yourself patched up and then come find me, I’ll have a shuttle ready to take us both to the castle when you get there”

With that Holt ran off, the dozen or so marines he had been leading dispersed, and rendered assistance wherever they could. Lance knew he needed to get his wounds looked at but he couldn’t bring himself to disturb any of the nurses. They were all so busy as it stood. Instead he just watched the chaos until…

“You there, commander! Let me get you some bandages”

The voice seemed so familiar, Lance couldn’t pin it… until he turned around.

“ _Hermano?”_ The woman uttered, completely stunned.

“V-Veronica?” he replied likewise.

Before Lance could even get a grip on what was happening, his sister pulled him into a hug.

“Oh Lance, we… Holt gave us your message before the attack, but I had no idea  you were here” She was crying now, tears dampening the fabric of Lance’s shoulder. He couldn't believe it, it had been a whole month now, he thought his whole family was dead. Being convinced of that for so long, even to feel his sister's embrace was unreal.

“Veronica they said Cuba… it’s-”

“Gone… I know. I was in medical school in Seattle when the attack came… I got on the last shuttle out”

“Then Mama, Marco, the others-”

Veronica didn’t respond to Lance’s prompt, and he took the hint. Looking down to his scuffed up dress boots, he could feel the tears now forming in his eyes, but they were somewhat happy. Veronica was alive, his sister, he wasn't as alone as he thought.

She stepped back out of the hug and for the first time Lance got a good look at her. She looked older, for sure, even though it had only been a year or so. Her long flowing hair had been tied back into a bun, and the medical scrubs she was wearing were covered in blood. Lance’s joy at his sister being alive turned into sadness. He never wanted his family to get caught in this stupid war, that's the reason he fought for Voltron in the first place. Had he known this was the end result… well he didn’t know what he would have done.

Veronica came back with bandages. She took the pistol (that he wasn’t even aware he was still holding) from his hands and set it on the desk. Quietly, she wrapped the bandages around his head, through his hair, and taped them off somewhere in the back. She then moved to his arm, and winced at the very sight of it before bandaging that too.

“My little brother…” she began, a small smile on her lips “fighting for some alien named Voltron, and now the commander of his own ship… mama would be so proud”

Lance was pulled into another hug, this one softer, warmer.

“Actually Voltron’s a robot” Lance whispered in her ear

“Shut up Lance…” she whispered back with a grin.

Yeah, this was his sister alright. Unfortunately their reunion was short lived. Another attack could be underway any minute, and Lance had a long overdue meeting with team Voltron. He pulled his pistol of the desk and holstered in his belt, giving his sister a determined look. They said their goodbyes, and Lance watched her disappear back into the sea of the wounded and dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head, when the coalition arrives and saves the day, this lovely song by Bear McCreary from his Battlestar Galactica soundtrack was playing:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JculidrJIbI


	14. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance returns to the castle. While the team hopes everything will be as it was, Lance has other ideas.

**Altean Castle Ship, 30 minutes ago:**

On the castle, Keith watched the three Galra battlecruisers crash into the surface of the moon with baited breath. He knew that if Lance was still alive, then he was somewhere in the base below them. He wanted to just take Red down to the surface and find Lance, but when he floated the idea Shiro shot it down.

In the last week they spent above Okarion preparing to counter attack in Sol, Keith had spent hours on end catching Shiro up on everything that had happened since he disappeared. It was a lot of information, but Shiro took it surprisingly well, even the part about Keith being madly in love with Lance. Of course, Keith swore him to secrecy.

As the rest of the coalition fleet moved forward to liberate the space surrounding Earth, Coran announced an incoming communication from the surface. Much to Keith’s dismay, it wasn’t Lance.

“DAD!” Pidge shouted

“Katie, it’s so good to see you” Commander holt replied.

"Commander Holt, it's been some time, we came as quickly as we could but it took us a while to muster the full strength of the coalition" Allura interjected

Holt was covered head to toe in armor, and was with several marines, it was clear that he’d been in a fight. Keith scanned the screen for any sign of Lance and saw none.

“Sam, is that you?” Shiro asked, with a smirk.

Holt raised an eyebrow. “Shiro didn’t we just see each other a month and a half ago?”

“Yeah… that wasn’t me… clone… really long story but I’m glad you’re okay” Shiro replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “Where's Lance?”

Holt’s look of confusion became one of concern. Keith didn’t like that face.

“I don’t know we lost contact with him an hour ago. Fighting within the base has been intense since the first Galra landing parties arrived. I’ll go look for him and _when_ I find him, we’ll take a shuttle up to the castle”

“We look forward to having you commander Holt” Allura said before shutting the channel.

As the paladins dispersed and went about their business, Shiro could see that Keith was extremely worried.

“Come on” he said. “Lets go wait for them in the pod bay”.

\-----------------------------------------

Keith wasn’t sure how long they’d been in there, but it felt like an eternity. As they waited, the rest of the team trickled in. First Pidge and Matt came, excited to see their dad again. Allura and Coran came next, brining news that Lotor’s fleet had cleared the space around Earth of other Galra warships. Hunk was the last one to enter, carrying a tray of cookies he had made. If Hunk had time to bake, that means Shiro and Keith had been waiting a long time.

Suddenly the bay doors opened, and a human shuttlecraft coasted in and landed. Keith shot up from where he was sitting and stood up straight. While maybe it took nearly a minute, the time between landing and the shuttle doors cracking open felt even longer than the period Keith had waited prior.

The door slid open to reveal Commander Holt, still in his armor. He ran from the shuttle and scooped both his children in to a hug. Although warmed by the display Keith turned back to the shuttle, waiting for Lance to appear. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw when Lance did finally show.

The tall boy ducked to fit under the hatch, and when he stood, Keith gasped. Lance still donned that grey Garrison uniform, with a pistol holstered to his belt’s right side. Both on his head, and his left arm were bandages, wrapped tightly, but bloodied. His hair was disheveled, standing up in some areas, stuck down in others. To top it off, his chest had crimson red dried blood stains, that Keith wasn’t sure where they came from. This proved to be a little too much for the rest of the team to bear. Allura covered her mouth in surprise, Coran’s eyes widened, Pidge broke from her father’s embrace, and Shiro just froze.

Keith didn’t care. He marched right up to Lance; who’s blue eyes widened in pure surprise. Keith stared at him for a brief second, and pulled the former paladin into a hug. Keith could feel Lance’s muscles tense against him, and he noticed Lance didn't return the hug, instead leaving his arms extended to either side. When Keith slowly met Lance’s gaze, he realized Lance was crying.  Before he could say anything Lance returned the hug.

Unable to wait any longer, Hunk joined in, dropping the tray of cookies where he stood. Pidge, Allura, and Coran followed, trapping Keith and Lance in the center between all of them.

“I missed you guys so much…” Lance said, freeing his good arm to wipe away the tears.

As the hug broke up, Lance made eye contact with the still distant Shiro, who quickly gazed back to the floor.

“Don’t worry Shiro” Lance said, grabbing him by the shoulder. “I knew that wasn’t you, and I’m just glad to have you back.”

“You know Lance this uniform kind of suits you” the older paladin chuckled.

Lance managed a small smile in return.

\-----------------------------------------

The team brought Lance to the medbay to help with his injuries. Once settled in, they filtered out with Commander Holt to the control room, until only Coran and Keith were left. Keith helped Lance remove the bloodied top from Lance’s uniform and discard it, leaving only the white t-shirt and pants. He watched as Coran applied some sort of space gel to the wounds, and Lance winced at the contact.

“You know Lance, this gel will help close the wounds but I’d really prefer you use a pod” Coran said, capping the cubical container.

Lance looked at the elder Altean silently and just shook his head.

“We’ve got work to do, I can’t just sit in a pod right now” He said sadly.

Coran nodded, an imparted a worried look to Keith before stepping out of the room. Before Keith could ask if he was alright, Lance spoke:

“Do you know something Keith… I must have seen hundreds if not thousands of people in the last month that could really use these pods. Hell there's probably about five-hundred people below us who need them now” he said looking up to Keith.

Keith could see the weight of the war in those blue eyes. Every fight, every casualty, every stressful decision seemed to radiate from them. This was still Lance, but, it isn’t the same Lance they had left on the _Everest_ all that time ago.

“I thought of you every day” Keith began. “I was worried something would happen, or that you would get hurt, or that I’d never see you again. I’m just really, really glad you’re okay”

Lance was blushing, Keith could see it.

“Keith I… I thought alot about you too… I just… really missed you”

Keith wanted to kiss Lance right this very moment, but Shiro stepping into the medbay put that idea on hold.

“Hey you two… we need you on the command deck”

\-----------------------------------------

At the center of the control room was a map of the Earth-Moon system. Displayed on it were the hundreds of coalition ships, taking up defensive positions around the planet.

“Lance! I’m glad to see you’re up already!” Allura said, eyeing his freshly rebandaged head and arm. “We’ve cleared Earth space but, a counter-attack is likely imminent”.

“I figured as much, I’ll have Reams patch the friendly Galra transponder codes into our systems and relay it to the other Garrison ships. When I’m back on _Kilimanjaro_ I’ll coordinate off their movements”

The room fell silent and Lance wasn’t sure why. Allura was looking at the floor, trying to find the words to say. Lance scratched his head, visibly confused.

“What, was it something I said?”

“We thought…” Allura began, before Keith cut her off.

“Lance we thought you were going to stay now that we have Voltron back!” he shouted.

Lance could see how upset Keith was. Lance hated more than anything to see Keith hurt, especially by the choices he made. Still, Lance now had a crew, and a ship, all of which he was responsible for, he knew his place, at least until the Earth was safe, was in _Kilimanjaro’s_ C.I.C.

“I’m sorry guys, but it looks like you already have a pilot for each of the lions, I can be of more use on my ship” he said.

Keith’s heart shattered at this. All this waiting, all this time, for Lance to come back, and now he wanted to leave again? What if something happened during the battle? He couldn’t lose Lance again.

“Right… well… Haggar and her fleet are still out there, probably massing for another attack as we speak” Coran cut through the tension.

“He's right, we need to be ready to repel any attack on Earth. If they re-occupy the planet they’ll likely just bomb until it’s uninhabitable” Shiro added.

Lance stepped forward to the map that hovered in the center of the room.

“Commander Holt I think we should keep our six ships together and put them here” He said, pointing to the ruins of a space station. “The wreckage should provide ample coverage from standard Galra ion weaponry”

“Good plan Lance, I’ll let you work out the details, just forward me the data and I’ll push it up to Iverson, but right now… I need some time with my kids” He said, leading Pidge and Matt out of the room.

“Lance, it looks like you’ve really grown into your own as a leader, I’m proud of you” Shiro said.

Lance felt warm. Even after all this time (the real) Takashi Shirogane, pilot of the ill-fated Kerberos mission, survivor of the Galra arena, and Black Paladin was his hero.

“Keith told me that you have been in cryo since the fight with Zarkon” Lance said “When this is over, let’s catch up” Lance said

“I’d like that” Shiro said, before joining Coran, Allura, and Hunk at the front of the room.

Lance turned his attention to Keith, who was visibly upset. Considering that the upcoming battle was to be brutal, perhaps it was time they talked anyways.

“Keith I’m kind of cold… I have a second uniform top in the shuttle… walk with me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brace yourselves. Next chapter is to be THE Klance chapter.


	15. Thoughts and Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance finally get to spend some time together.

Keith waited quietly while Lance rummaged around the shuttle. The thought of Lance going back to the Garrison, back to the fight, upset Keith immensely. Watching as Lance carefully donned the clean grey uniform top, tensing as movement made his arm flare in the slightest amount of pain. Watching this, the red Paladin finally made up his mind: He was going to tell Lance how he felt. Sure, it was probably going to be the hardest thing he had ever done, (especially considering how good the former paladin looked in those dress greys), but it had to be done.

Lance stepped down from the shuttle, and walked up to Keith. Making prolonged eye contact before redirecting his gaze to the floor. 

“We have some time to kill, do you want to walk to the observation lounge with me?”

The two moved down the empty castle hallways in silence. Both knew exactly what they wanted to say, and neither of them knew how to say it. Instead, the quiet hum of the castle engines was the only audible echo that enveloped them. Keith knew this wasn’t like Lance, to be so silent, and he decided to say something, much to Lance’s surprise.

“Lance, are you okay?”

“Aw what me? Yeah that gel Coran applied is great it-”

“No, Lance… are you _okay?"_

Lance froze, and Keith stopped with him. He watched as a shudder went up the boy's spine, and as his face contorted, clearly remembering things he didn't want to. For the first time since the pod bay, Lance looked up from the floor, all the pain in his eyes suddenly visible for Keith.

“Honestly Keith… no, not really... not at all”

Before Keith could ask what was wrong, Lance began to open up.

“You know right after you guys left they sent me back to Earth, to Boston. We didn’t even land before everyone I was with got killed”

Keith was surprised at the open admission of what happened. Perhaps Lance had just been waiting to talk about it with someone… anyone. Even though that may be the case, he wasn't sure how he would handle it, after all, Lance was usually the one helping Keith through a difficult emotional turmoil. Keith lead Lance into the observation lounge. The room was semicircular, the one curved wall a giant window. The only light in the room was from the sun, albeit directly or reflected off the moon below them. Keith sat down at the couch in the center, waiting for Lance to join him, but he didn’t. Instead the exhausted former paladin stood at the window, facing away from Keith, staring at the burning planet on the Horizon. His hand shook, ever so slightly, as he reached up slowly, and touched his right hand's finger tips to the glass, reaching for the scorched Earth.

“You know in less than an hour the Galra had bombed Cuba off the map. There were _millions_ of people there Keith… and they’re all dead. Every last one of them was probably dead before you guys even wormholed out of the system” he said without flinching.

“What about your family?” Keith asked quietly. He could see Lance tense at the question.

“Veronica, my oldest sister, is the only survivor” He stated coldly.

Keith could see the pained look in Lance's face through his reflection on the window. but when Lance turned to face Keith, tears were streaming down his face. Lance dropped his hand from the glass, leaving a smudge, and fell to his knees. Keith shot forward to comfort him.

“I stayed behind for them!” He sobbed “I couldn't even save them they were dead before… oh dios”

Keith didn’t know what to do. He had never seen Lance cry like this… hell he’d never seen anyone cry like this. So, he simply sat there, and listened as Lance continued.

“This last week alone, we’ve been so close to death… so many times Keith. Trapped at Gagarin installation, running out of food and water… had you guys not come”

“It’s okay Lance, we’re here now, you’re here now... you’re back it's going to be okay” Keith stuttered trying to find the right thing to say.

“Keith I’m not even sure I'm back… I’m not the same kid you guys said goodbye to a month and a half ago… I can’t sleep, I can’t think, and yet I’m responsible for a ship, and a 2,000 man crew and…”

Keith didn’t think over what he did next. He reached over with his right hand and wiped the tears from Lance’s face with his thumb. The distraught boy stopped dead in his tracks and stared. When Keith realized what he had done, he panicked. He could feel his face turn red.

“I-uh sorry Lance I-hmmm” Keith couldn’t find the right words.

“No, Keith… its okay”

Keith, for maybe the millionth time that day, froze, unsure of what to say.

“I thought about you alot Keith. I thought about what you’d do in the situations I found myself, I thought about how lucky I was to be a part of a team, how much I missed you…”

Lance was blushing, and seeing it made Keith blush even more than he already was. Finally he figured out what to say and just went for it.

“I missed you too. I couldn’t sleep at night I was so mad at myself for letting you stay with the Garrison. Allura and Coran had to force me to sleep because I’d stay awake on the command deck looking for the black lion”

“You did all of that for me?”

“Oh… uh for the Earth and humanity and…”

Lance smiled and gave Keith a knowing look.

“Yeah, for you”

They paused for a moment watching the planet on the horizon, before both speaking at the some time:

“There’s something I need to tell you about”

“Oh, you first”

The pair laughed for the first time since seeing eachother again. However rather than argue it further, Lance went first.

“Keith, you were always someone I looked up too. Ever since the Garrison Academy,  I wanted to be just like you. That's why I started that stupid rivalry bullshit. I was hurt when you didn’t know who I was I just… I wanted nothing more than to get to know you”

The two faced each other.

“And then we did, we became good friends and you became my leader. I was so happy, but then… you left and so did the only person here I really relate to. I mean sure Hunk’s my best friend but, he, Matt, and Pidge were always off doing tech stuff and, Allura, Coran, and Not Shiro never seemed to have time to just hangout and be friends, so there I was on my own… I guess what I’m trying to say here is…”

Lance became visibly nervous, twiddling his thumbs while thinking of what to say next.

“I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I really care about you… but didn’t you have something to say”

Keith looked Lance dead in the face. He looked over all his features: shining blue eyes, smooth tanned skin, freckles that dotted his nose. Newer features caught his eye too, the scars of war, and the bandages on his forehead. All Keith wanted to do was kiss him. That was all Keith was going to do, to hell with the consequences.

He pushed his lips into Lance’s violently, almost missing. He could hear Lance choke back surprise. Lance’s lips were chapped, but as soft as he had always secretly hoped they would be. When Keith pulled away, he could see the shock in Lance’s face, the wide eyes, mouth hanging just slightly open. _Oh shit there are consequences._

“Lance-I Im so sorry I-”

Keith stood to leave, wanting nothing more than to run, but he fell back on his rear when Lance grabbed his wrist and pulled. Keith was confused, but finally understood when Lance grabbed him by both cheeks and pulled him in for a second kiss. This one was more gentle, it flowed, it felt right. Keith lost himself in the feeling, he never wanted it to end.

“Keith I’ve been waiting for you to do that since you cradled me in your arms” Lance said in a low, smooth voice.

“You son of a bitch! You do remember!” Keith said, fighting back laughter.

Lance put his left arm around Keith’s shoulder, despite how much it still hurt from being shot. He pulled Keith close, until their hair was touching. Keith could feel the warmth radiating from Lance’s skin.

“When this is all over… assuming we survive… travel the Earth with me” Lance said.

“You really want to go back there?”

“Well yeah, I never got to travel much, so it would be nice to. Hell, I’d even like to go back to Boston and see it not war torn”

Keith thought about the very idea of it. Outside of Texas, and the Arizona desert, Keith never really got around the Earth all that much. Him and Lance, alone together, traveling the world. It seemed perfect. However, there was still the fact that this whole war wasn't over, and the painful thought lingered, until Keith decided to act on it.

“Lance promise me something” He said.

Lance looked at him curiously.

“Promise me you’ll come back… from this battle I mean”

Lance thought about it for a moment.

“I promise” he said.

\-----------------------------------------

_Marco, little Marco. The young boy stood before him. They were alone on a beach... Varadero. White sand shifted beneath Lance's toes, and palm trees blew in the night wind. The half moon was bright on the horizon._

_Something was off though, because Marco always smiled, he was always happy. Yet, now he stood there by Lance with a frown._

_"Marco, mi hermano, whats wrong?"_

_The boy didn't speak._

_"Please... tell me!"_

_Wordlessly, the boy pointed towards the sky, in the direction of the constellation Orion. In space, Lance could see bright white flashes. He couldn't figure out what they were at first. They quickly got closer, and then, from those white flashes, bright streaks, like shooting stars, rained across the horizon. In the distance, in the ocean they landed, each with a bright orange fireball. The war... it was the war._

_He turned back to Marco... but Marco was gone. The palm trees were burning, and in the distance, he could hear horrible, bone chilling screaming._

_"Marco!?" Lance shouted._ _"Marco! where are you!"_

_He could feel himself starting to cry._

_"Marco please!"_

_The flames grew closer, as did the Galra bombs. An engulfed palm tree collapsed behind him._

_"MARCO!" he screamed as the flames consumed him._

"Lance! hey Lance you're okay!" Keith said, gently.

Lance took a brief second to gather his surroundings. He was in the observation room, wrapped up with Keith in a blanket. He was also drenched in sweat.

"Were you having a bad dream?" Keith asked cautiously.

"I suppose that's what we can call it" Lance replied, turning his head to face out the window towards the Earth.

"Well..." Keith considered his next words carefully. "You know I'm here for you right?"

Lance didn't say anything, instead turning back to the red paladin with a small smile and a nod.

"And I always will be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the next chapter is going to be the finale, and if its anything like I've planned, it's going to be pretty long. Chapter 17 will be the epilogue, it'll be shorter, but I'm going to post the two at the same time.


	16. Keep Them Safe For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final battle for control of the Earth begins, but not everyone is making it home.

_Kilimanjaro_ was abuzz with activity. Lance found himself shouting orders, signing papers, and trying to plan movements, all while calming his own fears. He stepped up to the map table and looked at the line up. _Everest_ and the other Garrison dreadnoughts were to the left, fully formed Voltron and the castle ship were just off to the right. The rest of their lines were made ships from various rebel cells, as well as Lotor’s imperial forces, and Blade of Mamora volunteers.

This was their only chance to hold the line. Either they rout Haggar’s fleet here and now, or they fail, and everyone still alive on the Earth below dies a fiery death at the hands of a Galra bombing force. Given the option, Lance was certain to pick the former.

It was not long before rebel scouts reported Haggar’s force was sighted at Saturn. At the rate of travel, it was about ten minutes before they were right on Earth’s doorstep. Lance signalled Reams to put the sip on red alert. As the red emergency lighting came on, and the alarm started to blare, the already chaotic C.I.C. became even more so, as marines sprinted past in full armor, young ensigns sprinted from console to console to relay orders, and random bits of information were being shouted above the genuine chaos.

Lance took this moment to patch himself into Voltron’s comms channel.

“Guys, Haggar’s fleet is on its way, are you ready for a fight?” He said.

“Ready as I’ll ever be!” Replied Pidge.

“No, but what choice do I have?” Hunk laughed.

“Ready down here!” Allura shouted.

“We’ve got your back Lance” Shiro affirmed.

“I’m good, just, please be careful Lance” Keith added.

Commander Holt joined the channel to relay some information from Iverson (who was back in Boston with the 15th division) and to wish his daughter good luck. While he spoke Lance watched the count down that was displayed on one of the C.I.C.’s screens. Eight minutes left. Muting himself on the open comms, Lance opened a private channel with the red lion.

“Keith?”

“Hey, Lance… how uh… how are things going over there?”

“Tense, like really tense. However, knowing you’re out there in Voltron makes me feel alot better”

“Yeah I wish I could say the same”

Lance looked back to the numerous people in the C.I.C. and to the clock. Six minutes.

“My crew needs me here, this is just the way it has to be unfortunately” Lance replied.

“If I had known what would’ve happened to you back here, had I know what you would have to go through I wouldn’t have let you gone Lance” Keith said

“Had I known, I would’ve gone anyways, and sure, it may have been a living hell for most of the time but, at least it helped me realize how much I like you”

Keith scoffed at the thought.

“What! Think about it Keith, the Garrison is literally the reason we met, it brought us together” Lance said quietly, as Reams eyed him with a grin.

“Yeah… I guess so”

Four minutes.

“Where do you wanna go first, when we’re done with all this?” Keith asked, jumping tracks entirely.

“Assuming it survives the war, I heard Italy was pretty nice, and Pidge’s family is from there maybe we can ask for recommendations?”

“That would be pretty great, I’m sure commander Holt can hook us up” Keith said, sighing after the fact

There was a pause, neither of them knew what to say next.

“I’m really sorry about Cuba… I know how important it was to you” Keith waited, hoping he hadn’t upset Lance.

“It’s okay Keith, we’re getting revenge today”.

Two minutes.

“Time’s almost up buddy are you ready?” Lance asked.

“Hunk was right, it's not like we have a choice, so yeah!”

Lance laughed at Keith’s joke, watching as the clock began to count down it’s final seconds.

“Closing the channel now, I’ll see you when this is all over”.

The first Galra battlecruiser came out of warp, and fired shots immediately. As two, then five, then a hundred followed it, all hell broke loose. The flash of Ion cannons dotted the sky, and purple beams filled the battlefield. Within a minute, the explosions of destroyed ships on both sides began to illuminate the hulls of those that continued the fight. The familiar cacophony of destruction engulfed the space surrounding the Earth. Fighters of both sides whizzed by their capital ships at intense speed, dueling with each other endlessly like wasps in a war zone.  

Lance watched as Voltron surged forward, and heard over the comms as Hunk formed shoulder cannon. The blinding blue light of it’s beam obliterated numerous Galra fighters. Quickly, they changed tactic, forming both sword and shield, and pile-driving right through the center of a battlecruiser, which promptly exploded. This continued, as Voltron jumped from ship to ship, bringing down numerous vessels with ease. To the humans watching, it was sure worth the wait.

On the Garrison side of things, Holt could be heard shouting orders, and copying them to the other dreadnoughts. His voice echoed through the C.I.C. thanks to the open comms. To Lance’s right, at the other end of the table, Reams was directing the main guns fire on one of the larger Galra battleships. Lance watched on the screens as the shells from _Kilimanjaro_ ripped through it’s upper hull, blasting purple tinted metal across the battlefield. He picked up the phone to weapons himself, trying to make himself heard over the chaos:

"ship to ship missile batteries one through five, redirect fire on the cruiser approaching our right flank"

The castle was also directly involved in the battle, its main guns ripping Galra cruisers to shreds, Coran shouting cheers in Altean the entire time. Lance could only imagine Matt trying to understand it, while controlling one of the defense drones. To him this felt like revenge, for Earth, for Altea, for the thousands of planets ravaged by the Galra.

“Hey Lance, it’s Holt, something’s wrong, our scouts at Saturn just went dark. We don't know what happened”

Lance didn’t like the sound of that at all. He proceeded to relay the message to team Voltron.

“Guys something happened to the scouts at Saturn, be ready!” Lance shouted.

The fight continued like this for several minutes, and ultimately, the coalition force had gained the upper hand. The Galra fleet started to fall into disarray. Voltron kept them on the defense, hacking and slashing cruisers in half, and preventing any fighters from getting too close to the main force. _Not this time you purple bastards._

“Sir something massive is dropping from warp!”

Before Lance could even ask what it was, Haggar’s colossal red super dreadnought was right on top of them. It loomed over the battle in a menacing presence, rotating gently. The chaos in C.I.C. ground to a dead halt. Out in space, the various voices of team Voltron began muttering things akin to “Not again”. However, it was Sam Holt who spoke for the vast majority of the Garrison’s thoughts.

“What the hell is that thing?”

Suddenly, the vessel’s main cannon began charging, and fired. The Ion beam was massive, and it left rings in space as it traversed the battlefield to a group of Lotor’s cruisers. Three of the ships were destroyed completely, the debris careening into other coalition ships.

In less than a minute the tide had turned, and the disarray that had befallen Haggar’s fleet quickly became prevalent in the coalition force. Ships scattered to avoid the super weapon, often to no avail. Lance began barking orders:

“Redirect fire onto that supership, launch all remaining fighters and prepare to take evasive maneuvers!”

Suddenly the massive cannon glowed again, but this time, it was targeting the Garrison ships. The first blast came rocketing down upon them, and Lance watched as it ripped apart the _Matterhorn_ killing Commander Ichpujani and her crew immediately. Stunned, Lance dropped the intercom phone he was holding, its plastic casing breaking as it hit the cold metal deck. Across the C.I.C. numerous officers began to mutter “oh my god” or “no!” Lance was almost certain he heard someone say “oh my god we’re going to die”.

“Hunk form shoulder cannon!” Shiro shouted

Lance watched with bated breath as the shoulder cannon charged… fired… and did absolutely nothing, bouncing harmlessly off the super ship’s armor. Terrified of what he witnessed, Lance covered his mouth with his hand trying to keep his composure for his crew.

“Fuccccck!” Pidge shouted. Shiro didn’t even bother to admonish her for her language, considering “fuck” was probably exactly how he was feeling right now.

“This ship is upgraded from the last one we fought, but there may still be a weak point underneath it at the center! Hunk shoot it again!” Allura shouted.

Before Hunk could even acknowledge the idea, the vessel’s cannon fired again, this time directly at Voltron.

“PIDGE, SHIELD NOW!” Keith shouted.

Pidge compiled, and Voltron raised his mighty shield. The beam struck it with deadly force, pushing Voltron back. Shiro tried to compensate with main thrusters, but it proved too much, and Voltron was overwhelmed. The entire team screamed as they separated into their individual lions.

Lance was shaken to the core. Not even Voltron made a difference against… whatever the hell that ship was. He didn’t even have time to dwell on it, because another flash, and the _Fuji_ was blown completely in half. Commander Anderson could be heard sighing as his comms cut out.

Once more the superweapon glowed. On the C.I.C.’s balcony one of the officers screamed: “Oh shit it’s targeting the _Everest_!”

Commander Holt must have heard this because he cleared his throat before uttering:

“Katie, Matt, I love you both, so very much”

The beam was swift, and in less than a second, the _Everest_ was blown violently apart. Shiney, grey, jagged debris went in all directions. Lance became overwhelmed with dread at the sight of it, but even that didn’t prepare him for Pidge’s screams.

“DAD NO!” She sobbed.

Everyone in the C.I.C. could hear this, and all of them stopped what they were doing and looked to Lance, but he had no words for them. Their faces radiated horror, immense sadness, fear, and everything in between. They all listened to Pidges cries as they became whimpers. Lance could now hear Shiro crying too, and Allura and Hunk’s desperate attempts to calm her down, or at least to try. Something had to be done, but Voltron couldnt reform with that super ship bearing down on them. Lance struggled to come up with a next move before the _Kilimanjaro_ was hit. Fortunately, it was by a normal Ion cannon, but the damage was immense. A fire broke out on the other side of the room, and a massive steel beam from the ceiling came crashing down. Just about everyone was knocked of their feet. Lance hit his head on the table on his way down, reopening his wound. Blood slowly dripped to the floor as he struggled back to his feet. He could see Reams lying on the floor across from him. She wasn’t moving, in fact, she wasn't breathing.

“This ends now” Lance said aloud, grabbing the attention of everyone in the room.

He moved to the intercom phone, and picked it up off the ground where he left it. Fortunately it still worked.

“All hands all hands, abandon ship, abandon ship. You have five minutes” He said.

The crew of the C.I.C. stared, everyone was tooafraid to move. They all knew what he was planning.

“GO! That's an order!” He shouted.

Slowly, the officers left, and Lance moved to the Pilot’s chair, the young lieutenant was still sitting there.

“Get the hell out of here lieutenant” Lance said.

The young man stood up and saluted, before running off. Lance was now alone in the C.I.C. The fire was growing in the background as Lance took the pilot’s seat, and a wire hanging down from the ceiling sparked violently. Keith radioed him immediately after:

“Lance why are the escape pods leaving your ship, are you hurt?”

“No, Keith, I’m fine, but I need you and Shiro to distract that damn super ship… I have a plan, just trust me”

Lance thought about what he just said. He knew he was not only abusing Keith's trust, but he was about to go back on his promise. The very thought hurt him as he rammed the throttle forward. He could hear the ship’s engines roar to life, and he felt himself push back into the chair at the force of it. He wiped the sweat and blood of his forehead, jolting as another series of sparks rained down from the ceiling.

“Okay Lance we’re keeping it busy, whatever you’re going to do, do it!” Keith shouted, not knowing how much he would regret that statement.

Lance thought about all the things he had done in his life. He thought about birthdays and holidays. He thought about family dinners, and Varadero beach. He thought about going to the Garrison Academy and meeting the best friends he had ever known. He thought about his time protecting the universe as a paladin of Voltron. He thought about his love for Keith.

“Lance what the hell are you…” Keith froze

“Keith- I”

“Lance don’t you fucking do it”

“You know better Keith there's no other way, your shot just bounced off and there's no way you guys can reform without getting blasted again”

Lance watched as the super dreadnought got bigger, and closer in the pilots screen.

“There’s got to be another way we can find it!” Keith shouted, practically begging.

“We don’t have time Keith, you know that, Allura said there's a weak spot but despite what we've been saying this whole time, Voltron  _isn't_ the way we win this"

“You promised you’d come back” Keith said, choking on some of the words.

Hearing that hurt. Lance hated not living up to a promise. Quickly team voltron began to chime in, as they had been listening the whole time.

“Yeah, Lance, buddy I’m with keith please don’t do this!” Hunk shouted.

“ _Lance… not Lance too…”_ Pidge whispered

“Lance there's got to be another solution, turn around please!” Allura pleaded.

Lance waited for Shiro to join them in trying to convince him to turn around, but Shiro sighed and said:

“Lance I… I’m proud of you, you’re _my_ hero”

Lance felt a swell of emotion in his chest, and tears began to stream down his cheeks. He listened as the team ripped into Shiro.

“Quiznack shiro don't encourage him!” Screamed Coran

“Shiro PLEASE help us turn him around!” Keith begged.

“Guys… I’m sorry but Lance is right… there's no other way” Shiro said. Lance could practically feel the sadness in his voice.

The super dreadnought filled the _Kilimanjaro’s_ pilot screen now, the blackness of space disappearing behind the horrifying amalgamation of red and purple architecture. He knew his time was running out, he had to say one more thing… and he had to get it just right.

“Keith, I love you, keep them safe for me” _Nailed it._

He muted his comms and said to himself:

“Shame, I was so looking forward to travelling the world with him”

He couldn’t tell if it was the true love he felt for Keith, or the fire now lapping at his back, but a pure warmth that made the boy smile was the last thing Lance ever felt before everything went black.

\-----------------------------------------

Keith watched the nose of the _Kilimanjaro_ plunge into the center of the super dreadnought like a dagger into a heart. Violent bright flashes marked the end of both ships, as a massive explosion destroyed them, and several Galra battlecruisers around them. Keith didn’t even realize he was screaming until Shiro was calming him down. 

"Lance... you-you brave ba-bastard" he muttered through his tears.

The destruction of Haggar’s super dreadnought marked the end of the battle, and surviving hostile warships quickly turned tail and disappeared into deep space. Yet, despite the victory, no one cheered. Comms was nothing but shallow sobs, and broken voices that were just trying to pick up the pieces until…

The comms from the _Denali_ and the _Olympus_ , the two surviving Garrison warships crackled to life.

_“Attttteeeeention”...  “Present, Arms!”_

Keith could hear the rustling of uniforms, and the clicking of boots, as every one of the crew members of those vessels saluted in honor of Lance. It was touching, really, but it didn’t fill the gaping hole Keith suddenly felt in his heart. Nothing could. That stupid, beautiful boy he had grown to love, the one with the bad jokes, deep blue eyes, piercing smile, and obnoxiously pretty laugh,  just sacrificed himself to save them all.

“I love you, Lance…” Keith whispered.

“I-we, need to get back to the castle… and there, there we can mourn the friends we lost” Shiro said.

No one acknowledged what he said, but one by one the lions turned back to the castle. The entirety of the short flight was marred by quiet tears and sniffles. Continuous waves of emotion rushed over the lions, and through the bond, their paladins.  _The lions themselves were grieving._ Blue and Red were easily the most effected, as their heads hung low, and their flight was sluggish, despite their Paladin's movements.  After putting the throttle forward three- maybe four times, Keith gave in, and let Red fly at her own pace. On any other day, the emotions of a lion would figuratively crush a paladin, but Keith had never felt his own grief this strongly, and ultimately, he might have been hurting more than Red.

By the time Red actually landed, the entire group was in the her hanger waiting for Keith to exit. When he did, he was pulled into a somber group hug, and the tears began to flow freely once more. Nothing would ever fill the void that Lance left, but at least he wasn’t alone in missing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so I killed Sam Holt AND Lance. You guys must hate me. Stay tuned, the short epilogue is up next.


	17. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the end, once and for all.

After the battle ended, Admiral Iverson took command of most of Earth’s rebuilding efforts. Barely half of the population had survived the war, and massive swaths of land, such as coastal China, the Caribbean islands, and Sub-Saharan Africa, were rendered completely uninhabitable by the Galra bombing campaign, but that never stopped humanity. Within a decade, they had repaired most of what they could, reestablished civilian government, and the long term effort of trying to repair the planet’s damaged ecosystem began. Iverson would personally oversee the construction of a marble statue of Lance in the Boston Public Garden, to commemorate his heroism for generations to come.

A week after the battle, team Voltron held a memorial service for Lance and Samuel Holt on an empty beach near Seattle, Washington. Veronica McClain attended, where she and the team shared stories of Lance’s life, and celebrated the person he was. 

With no family to speak of, Shiro remained the black paladin. He would work closely with the Garrison during the early rebuilding period, helping construct advanced defense systems, and ensuring that what happened here would never happen again.

Matt and Pidge returned home to find that their mother had survived the war. While Pidge did not remain a paladin of Voltron, she never distanced her self from the others. However, she spent significantly less time in space, before never going back altogether, as it brought back painful memories of a lost father, and adopted brother and friend. Working with Matt, her genius inventions became invaluable to the Human rebuilding effort, and as she grew older her exploits got her a lab just outside of Montreal, which Hunk visited frequently.

Hunk was elated to find that his family had also survived the war. He often brought them up to the castle to help cook meals for the team, which lead to many fun filled nights of laughing and eating. Life was simple, and happy for him, but something was always missing. He never quite got over the death of Lance, but to him, his service as the yellow paladin was the best way to honor the memory of his best friend.

Allura and Coran fell in love with the Earth, and decided to make it their home as well. They were welcomed by the Humans with open arms, and the castle found itself landed in the scenic Berkshires of western Massachusetts for the majority of the time. Coran used to say the Berkshires reminded him of the “Groggery hills” on Altea, and found peace there. In the long run, with the help of their Altean technology, the Earth would make a near full recovery, yet, never quite back to the way it was before. Under Allura's guidance, and Coran's limitless knowledge, the Garrison rebuilt it's fleet and established Earth as a regional power, and a Voltron Coalition capital world. After a few short years, the Alteans were just a small fraction of the numerous aliens who would come to call the Earth their home.

Keith spent the first year after the war travelling the world. He first went to Boston, where Iverson gave him Lance’s busted blue paladin helmet, which had survived under the snow inside the Prudential Center. In his travels Keith carried it with him, in a way, he was traveling the world with Lance, just like he had promised. When he returned to the castle, the helmet found its place on a shelf in the observation room, where Lance like to sit and watch the stars. Keith would sit with it often. Keith remained the red paladin, and protected Earth and the universe as long as he lived, and keeping true to Lance’s last request:

 

**_“Keep them safe for me”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, this is the end. This fic was really an experiment for me. I've never been much of a writer, but I wanted to give it a try, just once. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you liked reading it.  
> Again, theis fic was heavily inspired by the Battlestar Galactica reboot, from 2004. If you haven't watched it yet, please do it's phenomenal.  
> Thank you to all of you who have stuck with it since the first chapter. Your compliments gave me the motivation I needed to do this!  
> Here's the song I had in mind while writing this epilogue (from Bear McCreary's BSG soundtrack:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG-Js_rMEV4


End file.
